A Mississippi jury has acquitted a former engineer of charges related to the 2017 crash of a military transport plane that killed all 16 service members aboard. James Michael Fisher, the lead propulsion engineer at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in Georgia, was found not guilty after an eight-day trial in federal court in Greenville.
Fisher had been accused of lying to federal agents during the investigation into the crash of a KC-130T transport plane on July 10, 2017. The aircraft, which was en route from North Carolina to California, broke apart in mid-air near Itta Bena, Mississippi, after a cracked and corroded propeller blade failed. Investigators said civilian maintenance personnel had failed to detect the defect during inspections.
The indictment, handed down in 2024, alleged that Fisher made false statements about changes to inspection procedures and obstructed justice. However, defence lawyer Steve Farese argued that Fisher was not responsible for the changes, as they were approved while he was in Brazil. Farese also noted that the propeller in question was worked on before the relevant authorisation form was signed, and that multiple inspection failures could have contributed to the crash.
Prosecutors had claimed that engineers approved about 30 changes to propeller inspection procedures between 2008 and 2017, and that investigators lost trust in Fisher. The crash, which killed 15 Marines and a Navy corpsman, was the deadliest Marine Corps air disaster since 2005. The aircraft was based at Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York and was carrying special operations forces for training.
