2nd Trial Due in Gondola Deaths

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — A military judge ruled that prosecutors may proceed with the obstruction of justice case against a Marine navigator accused of destroying a videotape made just before his jet cut a ski gondola cable in Italy last year, killing 20 people.

Prosecutors claim Capt. Joseph Schweitzer, 31, of Westbury, N.Y., destroyed a videotape he shot before his radar-jamming EA-6B Prowler hit the gondola cable during a training flight in February 1998.

Trial is scheduled to begin Monday. If convicted, Schweitzer could be sentenced to 10 years.

Schweitzer is the second to be tried in the accident. On March 4, a military jury at Camp Lejeune acquitted the jet’s pilot, Capt. Richard Ashby, 31, of Mission Viejo, Calif., of manslaughter and other charges.