ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA - Federal investigators blamed an Air Force pilot for causing the deadly collision between an F-16 Fighting Falcon and a civilian plane over Manatee County two years ago. <br>
<br>
Lt. Col. James Parker was faulted in the Nov. 16, 2000, crash even though he was not involved in it. <br>
<br>
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the accident occurred because Parker failed to watch what was going on around him as he searched for the practice bombing range at Avon Park in Bradenton. Parker was piloting one of two F-16s in the area on a training mission from Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. <br>
<br>
Parker's wingman, Capt. Greg Kreuder, was looking up and to his right to follow his commander and never saw the four-seat Cessna 172. Jacques Olivier, the 57-year-old pilot of the private plane, was killed instantly on impact. <br>
<br>
Parker ejected from his crippled fighter and was uninjured. The jet crashed and burned in a wooded area. <br>
<br>
Contributing factors, the NTSB said, were Parker's decision to discontinue talking to air traffic controllers, his failure to notice that his navigation systems were improperly reporting his position by as much as 13 miles, and his subsequent violation of entering controlled civilian airspace without the permission of air traffic controllers. <br>
<br>
The Safety Board also faulted air traffic controllers at Tampa International Airport for failing to recognize that there were two planes in the Air Force formation, and not just one, which hampered efforts to keep everyone separated. <br>
<br>
The NTSB's conclusions differ from the judgment of Air Force investigators, who released their findings four months after the accident. <br>
<br>
While Air Force investigators acknowledged that their pilots were not where they were supposed to be, were flying too fast and were not in contact with air traffic controllers as they should have been, they said Olivier and air traffic controllers had to share responsibility. <br>
<br>
Olivier, they said, had violated a basic tenet of fair-weather flying, to see and avoid other aircraft. <br>
<br>
The Air Force also said Tampa controllers received a ``conflict alert,'' an electronic warning of an impending collision, 30 seconds before the crash occurred. Had the controllers alerted Olivier, he likely would have had time to change course and avoid the collision, they said.
