Federal mapping agency has history of providing incomplete or
inaccurate data
Copyright © 199 Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (May 15, 1999 10:32 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -
The federal agency responsible for making charts and maps used by
military pilots has a history of providing incomplete and inaccurate
data, resulting in fatal mishaps such as the bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Yugoslavia and the slicing of a gondola cable at an Italian
mountain resort by a U.S. military jet, the Los Angeles Times reported
Sunday.
The National Imagery and Mapping Agency and its predecessor
organization have produced charts or maps that played a role in at
least a dozen accidents since 1985, some involving fatalities and loss
of military aircraft, according to documents and interviews reviewed
by the Times.
On May 7, fighter pilots using outdated maps attacked the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade, killing three journalists and injuring 20 people.
The map had the embassy in the wrong place, although the Belgrade
phone book and tourist maps had the correct address.
"No database available to NIMA identified the targeted location as the
location of the Chinese embassy," NIMA spokeswoman Laura Snow said
Friday in a written response to the Times' questions.
The accident remains under investigation.
NIMA maps were a factor in three accidents in the last 15 months that
killed a total of 28 people, including the clipping of an Italian
gondola cable by a Marine fighter jet in February 1998 that left 20
people dead.
NIMA officials contend they have an exemplary safety record despite a
massive workload. Last year, the agency printed 23.5 million copies of
maps and charts and produced 650,000 compact discs.
Though the Italian gondola accident received the most attention,
others involving faulty maps have occurred. About two weeks after the
Marina gondola tragedy, five Navy fliers were killed when their UH-1N
Huey helicopter collided with power lines.
The electrical wires didn't appear on the map they used even though
the same power lines killed two other people three years earlier, a
military investigator said.
The agency has encountered funding shortages, a loss of senior
analysts and cartographers and friction between intelligence and
defense communities for its services.
NIMA was created in 1996 by merging the 24-year-old Defense Mapping
Agency with photographic analysts and intelligence personnel from
seven other Pentagon and CIA branches.
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