Navy Changes Status of Gulf War Pilot
W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 11, 2001 -- In an unusual move, the Navy has changedthe status of a pilot shot down in an F/A-18fighter on the opening night of the 1991 Gulf War, from KIA to MIA.
A Defense Department official told ABCNEWS, "We have reason to think he survived the ejection."
Navy Secretary Richard Danzig notified the family of Lt. Cmdr. Michael Speicher yesterday, according to officials at the office of Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., who has long challenged the Pentagon’sofficial “finding of death” for Speicher. The officials discussedthe matter on condition they not be identified. Pentagon officialsconfirmed the information.
Speicher, of Jacksonville, Fla., was shot down over Iraq (north of Baghdad) on Jan. 17, 1991 during an air-to-air battle with an Iraqi fighter. He was the first American lost in the war and the last still unaccounted for. His wingman reported two balls of fire. He said he saw one when he thought the plane had been hit and another when the plane hit the ground. There was never any communication from the ground so, at that point, Speicher was listed as "killed in action, body not recovered."
In 1995 U.S. investigators visited the crash site and knew instantly that the Iraqis had been there. Investigators said they found the site had been excavated.
Demands on Iraqi Government
A State Department official sent a new diplomatic note to Baghdad demanding the Iraqi government tell all it knows about Speicher’s fate.
Last March, Smith and Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn., asked Danzig tochange Speicher’s status to missing in action, reflecting evidenceof doubt about whether he survived the crash. Smith met with Danzigagain Dec. 20 on the matter, officials said.
In a letter dated Dec. 18, Sandy Berger, President Clinton’snational security adviser, told Smith a recent intelligenceassessment “has stimulated a high-level review of this case —-several new actions are under way and additional steps are underintense review.”
Berger’s letter did not specify what actions were contemplated.
The late Adm. Mike Boorda, then the chief of naval operations,approved the official “finding of death” on May 22, 1991. Thataction changed his official status from missing in action to killedin action.
In September 1998, after efforts by Smith and Grams to learnmore about what U.S. intelligence agencies knew of Speicher’s fate,the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was given a classifiedchronology of the agencies’ activities on the matter.
Questioning Plane Crash Death
“We strongly believe that the information contained thereinsupports the request we are making of you with this letter,” Smithand Grams told Danzig in a letter last March. They did not cite anyspecific evidence, which is classified secret.
The senators said they were informed March 12 by the DefenseDepartment’s POW-Missing Personnel Office that its position onwhether the available evidence indicates Speicher perished in thecrash of his plane is, “We don’t know.”
Smith and Grams have said before that Pentagon officialsinitially told them evidence had not been found to indicate thatSpeicher could have survived the crash. However, in May 1994 — morethan three years after Speicher went missing — Pentagon officialsindicated in a secret memorandum that a U.S. spy satellite hadphotographed a “manmade symbol” at the crash site earlier thatyear. Some military officers said they interpreted the symbol as asign that the Navy pilot might have survived the crash.
Speicher was the only American killed on Iraqi territory whoseremains were not recovered.
A plan was devised in 1994 to conduct a covert operation intoIraq to search the crash site for clues to Speicher’s fate, but itwas scrapped in December 1994 by Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, thenthe chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The general ruled therisk of casualties was too high to justify the secret mission.
ABCNEWS' Barbara Starr and The Associated Press contributed to this report.