Trial set for pilot in Afghan crash

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

A veteran Schofield Barracks helicopter pilot faces court-martial on charges including negligent homicide and reckless endangerment after a Black Hawk crash in Afghanistan last August that killed the helicopter's crew chief, the Army said.

Schofield Barracks Sgt. Daniel Lee Galvan, 30, was killed in the Aug. 12, 2004 crash of a Black Hawk helicopter in Afghanistan. Photo courtesy Sonya Galvan

Sgt. Daniel Lee Galvan, a 30-year-old father of two from Moore, Okla., was killed in the Aug. 12 crash near the Pakistan border. Three other crew members and 11 Marines were injured.

Initial reports said the Black Hawk developed mechanical problems and went down outside Camp Salerno near Khowst.

However, Galvan's widow, Sonya, said the crash actually occurred in a "nap of the earth" low-level pass while the troop-carrying chopper piloted by Rogers was waiting to take part in a "quick reaction force" demonstration for a visiting VIP.

Nap-of-the-earth flying is the closest to the ground, trees or other obstacles conducted by the Army, usually at 25 feet or less.

"They were on standby for a maneuver ... and during that time that they were waiting, (Rogers) decided that he was going to show the Marines nap of the earth," Galvan said. "He did a dive, and on the second dive he couldn't recover."

Galvan said that in the transition to a dive, which momentarily created zero gravity, wheel chocks in the cabin floated in the air and came down on the helicopter's collective, which is used to control rotor blade pitch, and the chopper crashed.

Galvan said the wheel chocks coming down on the control was partly to blame, "but regardless of the chock blocks, they were at an altitude too low to ever recover the helicopter."

Rogers, reached at home on O'ahu Friday, said "that (the nap-of-the-earth dive) wasn't what caused it," but referred all other questions to his military attorney, Capt. Darwin Strickland. Strickland, a trial defense attorney at Schofield Barracks, declined to comment.

Sonya Galvan said her account is based on Army reports that she has obtained on the accident. The Advertiser could not independently verify her account.

The Army said the helicopter was destroyed, but did not burn. Four of the more seriously injured troops were sent to Bagram Airfield's hospital. Galvan, a helicopter mechanic, was the only person killed.

The 25th Infantry Division (Light) provided little information beyond the charges, and said, "because this is an ongoing case, the government will not comment further regarding the case."

Galvan and Rogers were good friends, and Galvan said before he left for Afghanistan he felt safest flying with Rogers.

Sonya Galvan said the decision that day by Rogers, who had flown for more than 19 years, left her without a husband, and her 12- and 14-year-old children without a father.

"(Rogers) already did six deployments, so he was a veteran, and he made a very stupid choice," she said

Her son sees a therapist, takes medication and may have to repeat a grade because he is so upset, she said. The whole family has been torn apart by the crash, said Galvan, who lives in Texas.

"I'm angry," she said. "I see all these wives coming home to their husbands, or are putting out 'Welcome Home Daddy' banners, and I'm laying flowers at my husband's grave."

She says that she fears the charges against Rogers, which carry a maximum of 5 1/2 years in prison, will be shortened by a plea bargain, something she doesn't want.

"I'm so scared they're going to say, 'He was a great pilot for 19 1/2 years, and we'll just let him out because he made this one mistake.' ... I don't feel that's adequate punishment for my husband's life," she said.

There were three other helicopters flying with the Black Hawk, she said.

"When they did their dive and didn't recover, I guess the other ones flying behind them said, 'Black Hawk down, Black Hawk down,' " she said. "That's when they tried to get down there to recover anybody."

Daniel Galvan enlisted in the Army in June 1996 and was assigned to Schofield Barracks in June 2002. He was the third of 12 Schofield soldiers to be killed in Afghanistan during a yearlong deployment that began in early 2004 for 5,800 soldiers, and is now winding down.

The Oklahoma man, whose father and two brothers served in the Army, loved aviation and helicopters, his wife said. He had crew wings tattooed on his back from shoulder to shoulder, and when he wasn't flying in helicopters, he was piecing models together.

"Our whole house was a shrine to them," Galvan, 32, said.

He's buried in Lubbock, Texas.

Her husband was "extremely proud" to be in the Army, to be in aviation and to be part of the Afghanistan deployment, she said. He had asked to deploy previously, but never got the opportunity.

"This was his first and last deployment," Galvan said.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.