European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 28, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Thursday december 28, 1989 the stars and stripes Page 3 Safe crashes put emphasis on safety the year in review from Page 1 accidents in the command Over five years. The Analy Sis did not cover accidents after june 12. The analysis published in a special edition of us afe s air scoop safety Magazine noted that the command had a significantly higher Accident rate in fiscal 1988 and 1989 than either tac air come or Pacific air forces. It also found that Pilot error caused Hal of Safe s class a accidents Over the five years. Mechanical fail ures caused 41 percent while 9 percent resulted from other causes. Most mishaps Aren t caused by one partic ular thing said col. Carl Parlatore Safe safety director. A mishap is created by a whole Bunch of links being put together. A trite cliche in the safety business is that safety is Paramount he said. Well safety in t Par amount. Mission accomplishment is Paramount. When you do things in a smart tactical sense and you use common sense and Good judgment you accomplish your Mission. The byproduct is a Safe operation. And that s where our focus has  seven High risk elements were identified in the analysis unmarried lieutenants. Less than two years in Safe. Aircraft such As Al 5s and f-l6s that have three missions air to air combat conventional attack and nuclear weapons delivery. Sorties in March april june july or december january. Changes from Clear to bad weather. Low proficiency in the event being flown. Human factors such As the Pilot s ability to focus on necessary tasks. When you put All that stuff together there is a message Parlatore said. And you be just got to be smart enough to read it. After you Analyse it you be got to get it out to the people who really need the information. Arm the commanders who Are really the chiefs of  of the 17 accidents Analysed Only four involved less than four elements and each of those had three. One involved All seven. We re trying to develop programs that specifically look at Why people do the things they do Parla Tore said. Sometimes the Mission gets overwhelm Sis Lynda a Limion it. Col. Jim Donley. Calls it cyclical ing. And they try to get it done by cutting Corners. What we re trying to do is make sure we under stand that process so that we can Tell the people make them aware of it so that if they Ever come into a situation they can say wait a minute. I be been Here before and i m not going to fall into that trap " Safe officials Don t yet know How Pilot proficiency and ultimately flight safety have been affected by new restrictions on military Low level flights in West Germany that took effect in the fall. Among the restrictions announced by West Ger Man defense minister Gerhard Stoltenburg were a lower permissible air Speed a maximum time limit on Low level flights and the addition of More cities to no Fly zones in designated Low Fly areas. One effect already is apparent said Donley an instructor for the 526th fighter so at Ramstein a. His unit used to Send out about two four ship teams daily to train at Low level. Time restrictions enforced by an Allied scheduling Center at Simbach a have forced the 526th to Cut Back to about half that. But Werner May Leader of a group opposing Low level flights in West Germany dismissed the new restrictions As too timid. We re not satisfied he said. The Only thin acceptable is a total ban on Low level  citizen complaints about Low level flights doubled Between 1987 and 1988, increasing from 5,700 to 11,800, a West German defense ministry official said earlier this year. In an attempt to deflate Public concerns Safe last Spring published a 20-Page Booklet on the subject to distribute to the Media. West German officials and others. The full color Booklet likened the need for military training to a soccer team s need to practice. It pointed out that Safe had Cut its Low level training incest Germany by 45 percent since 1985. It also compared nato strength in ground and air forces and equipment with that of the Warsaw pact Alli Ance. The command released the first edition about one week before former Safe commander Gen. Wil Liam l. Kirk left office in april. A second edition containing a portrait of Dugan Kirk s successor and other updated information was published in late summer. West German defense officials had suggested changes in the Booklet when it was first released. One was a paragraph stating that complaint investigations had dropped by 23 percent since 1987. A West Ger Man military officer assigned to the defense ministry said Safe was asked to drop the paragraph because it implied that citizen complaints had dropped when they had in fact increased. The paragraph was replaced in the second edition by information about a Low level radar tracking sys tem. Booklet or not however the debate Over flight training in general heated up with the dec. 18 midair collision that killed i St it. Steven Sundstrom 29, of the 50th tac fighter Wing. The state of Rheinland Pfalz filed a protest about training conducted Over populated areas. The Acci Dent is being investigated by a Board of air Force officers. I think we re As Good As you can be when you re talking about those kinds of speeds one Safe Pilot said. You re talking about a Young kid whose heart is beating real fast who s trying to slay alive Inthis tactical scenario you be built for each other to simulate going to  contributing to this report still number a Gtna it Fundak in a Tiv not marines Are turning used ammo into Gold by the Las Angeles times Camp Pendleton Calif. For nearly half a Century the Marine corps has ambitiously bombed strafed shelled and rocketed a vast area of Camp Pendleton to practice for War. Now in a modern variation of swords into Plo shares the marines Are discovering that the generations of exploded metals might be recycled to make Money for such peaceful activities As child care and environmental efforts at the base. For the past two weeks 86 marines have combed a firing Range with excruciating caution while detonating Dud ordnance and gingerly collecting tons of Bent and twisted metals that arc a virtual Archive of military munitions since world War ii. We re trying to catch up to the 1940s," said capt. Jack Bell who is supervising the Field operation As Camp Pendleton s senior officer from explosive ordnance disposal. I be got 10 years Worth of work  for All the labor and danger involved the unusual recycling Effort May provide the marines with some thing they want As much As weapons in these Days of dwindling military Bud gets Money. Amy Duncan a civilian recycling specialist at the base said the marines have High Hopes that gathering used ordnance will become a profitable part of a broader recycling program that earned about $1.5 million for the base since fiscal year 1988. We Hope it s going to be a Money making project. I Don t see How it can t be Duncan said. The marines have diligently collected brass Cartridge casings from the Rifle and pistol ranges for 20 years but Camp Pendleton s enormous firing area for heavier weapons has been mostly left alone since the base open Din 1942. Every year demolition experts mince through the three parts of the Remote firing Range to find and blow up anything that did t explode upon delivery. Last year More than 7,000 dangerous Dud rounds were set off and 6,480 have been handled so far this year. It was Only last year however that marines actually began harvesting an assortment of dead ordnance from the Range. But the yield was Only 12 tons and the material fetched a meager re turn because it was left in the Remote area for buyers to pack up and trans port. This year promises to bring the first real bumper crop of aluminium and steel As the marines glean far More material and prepare to do a More aggressive Job of marketing it. Since dec. Ii the marines have gathered 69 tons of aluminium a figure expected to reach 90 tons by the end of the cleanup. They also have collected tons of recyclable scrap Metal but a figure was t immediately available. The marines won t know How much the material will sell for until Early next year when bids Are sought. But. According to the Escondido recycling Center a ton of aluminium is Worth about $1,250, depending on where it s sold. The Range a Flat area overlooked by Hills is Laden with remnants of bombs that weighed up to 500 pounds rocket from planes and helicopters artillery and mortar shells and some projectiles even Bell has been unable to identify. The Enterprise also has turned into a Chance for Bell to gather a team of demolitions experts like himself and train with a seemingly limitless Supply of explosive devices. I brought in Der Ili Tion technicians from All Over the states for this Bell said. Because of what Bell Calls the extreme Clement of risk a detail of 54 marines ventures into the firing Range with his 32 demolition experts who first find and explode the duds. Anybody who goes downrange gets a safety class before they go in Bell said. Dust covered marines pick through the Fields of fallen projectiles from 7 30 . Until 2 30 . It gets tiring said staff sgt. Brent Benson. You re handling a lot of 155 millimetre artillery rounds that weigh about 100  besides the earnings and training aspects Bell sees the operation As simply the sensible thing to do. We re in fact cleaning up after our selves finally and we re paying our selves to do it. We re the ones to Bene fit he said. Camp Pendleton in t the Only base to accept the age of environmental concern and limited resources. But with 35,000 people on base and Exten Sive training with a variety of arms it is one of the largest military Sites of reusable metals in the nation