Great moments at NIMI

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun May 16 00:06:33 PDT 1999


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On May 7, fighter pilots using outdated maps attacked the Chinese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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