Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 25, 1990 TAG: 9005250391
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The new problems came during "follow-up testing which the Navy has been doing periodically as new theories were brought forward" since the Iowa blast and the Navy's review of it, the service said.
Last year, the Navy said the Iowa explosion "most probably" was an intentional act by gunner's mate Clayton Hartwig of Cleveland.
Forty-seven sailors were killed in the April 19, 1989, explosion during gunnery practice.
The service accused Hartwig, who was killed, of placing "some type of detonation device" between the gunpowder bags. The service said Hartwig was a loner who staged the blast because he was upset over the breakup of a friendship with another sailor, but admitted it only had circumstantial evidence for its finding.
Members of Congress and others attacked that conclusion as unsupported by fact. Those critics said Thursday's announcement showed they were right.
Hartwig's father, Earl Hartwig, himself a Navy gunner's mate in World War II, said in Cleveland: "This is what we've been saying all along. My son is not guilty. The Navy was barking up the wrong tree."
Hartwig's sister, Kathy Kubicina, said, "This is a total victory."
The Iowa's skipper at the time, Capt. Fred P. Moosally, blasted the Navy's initial investigation in a speech at his May 4 retirement ceremony.
Moosally said it was conducted by "people more concerned with `getting it over with,' " who used "facts and opinions based on unsubstantiated third-party information, unsubstantiated reports and supposition."
Pentagon sources said the Navy was informed several weeks ago about test results at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., which indicated the Iowa explosion could have been caused by the over-ramming of the gunpowder bags.
The General Accounting Office, the congressional investigating agency, hired Sandia to evaluate the testing the Navy did in its initial investigation.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., had requested the follow-up testing, said Navy spokesman Cmdr. Mark Baker.
"As a safety precaution, the Navy today suspended all live firing of battleship 16-inch, 50-caliber guns, until further notice," the Navy said Thursday.
Representatives from Sandia helped perform Thursday's tests in Dahlgren.
Five 96-pound bags of gunpowder pellets were dropped with weights on top of them, recreating the tremendous forces that ram the bags into the chamber of a 16-inch naval rifle.
"They were trying to re-create the conditions for a `fast ram,' " said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "On the 18th try they got a detonation."
by CNB