[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 6, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1206-H1208]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           CLEARING THE NAMES OF JOHN BROW AND BROOKS GRUBER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Madam Speaker, thank you very much.
  I was elected in 1995. Shortly after being sworn in, I was appointed 
to the Armed Services Committee. In my district of eastern North 
Carolina, we have Camp Lejeune Marine Base, Cherry Point Marine Corps 
Air Station, New River Marine Corps Air Station, and Seymour Johnson 
Air Force Base.
  At the time, I was familiar with the Marine Corps' desire and need to 
have the MV 22 Osprey. The Osprey is the plane that can go from a 
helicopter mode to a plane mode. I realized it was at that time very 
controversial. In fact, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney was opposed to 
the plane's ever becoming a reality, and as a Member of Congress I was 
very supportive. I was a new Member, obviously, and I was very much 
supportive.
  Madam Speaker, I am just going to hold up for a moment what the 
Osprey looks like, which is the plane I was just describing. It is an 
unusual-looking bird, but the Marine Corps believes it's what it 
definitely needs to complete its mission of serving this great Nation.
  On April 8 of the year 2000, a tragedy happened in Marana, Arizona. 
Colonel John Brow, who is to my left on this poster, was the pilot; and 
the copilot was Major Brooks Gruber. That night, 19 marines on a 
mission at Marana, Arizona, on Night Hawk 72, which was being piloted 
by Brow and copilot Gruber, flipped and crashed and burned, and 19 
marines were killed. It was a very tragic, tragic happening, a very 
tragic night.
  The wife of Major Brooks Gruber contacted me and asked me if I would 
please look into the fact that the Marine Corps had issued a press 
release, and I'm going to just touch on this very briefly.
  The Marine Corps officials say that a combination of factors caused 
the Osprey accident. A report released by Marine Corps officials today 
confirmed that a combination of human factors--and that's a problem, 
Madam Speaker, those words ``human factors''--caused the April 8 
accident. General Jones replied: ``Unfortunately, the pilots' drive to 
accomplish that mission appears to have been the fatal factor.''

                              {time}  1830

  Madam Speaker, again, from Marine headquarters, they sent out this 
press release nationally and internationally. Therefore, people started 
believing that the pilots were somewhat responsible for the accident.
  About a year later is when Connie Gruber contacted me, and I would 
like to read part of her email to me, December 10, 2002:

       I contacted you in hopes that leaders of integrity, free of 
     bias, would have both the intelligence and the courage it 
     takes to decide the facts for him or herself. If you do that, 
     you will agree the ``human factor/pilot error'' findings 
     should not stand as it is in military history. Again, I 
     respectfully ask for your support. Please do not simply pass 
     this matter along to General Jones without offering the 
     support my husband and his comrades deserve. Please remember, 
     these 19 marines can no longer speak for themselves.

  Madam Speaker, that email from Connie Gruber started a 10-year 
journey. From that journey I continued to reach out to experts, which I 
am no expert, Madam Speaker, at all. But I had to believe the wife of 
Brooks Gruber that she and Trish Brow, the wife of the pilot, Major 
John Brow, that they told me that their husbands have the right to rest 
in peace.
  So, Madam Speaker, from that I would like to read some comments. Rex 
Rivolo wrote me this in the effort of trying to clear the names of John 
Brow and Brooks Gruber:

       I write in an attempt to help correct a great injustice 
     perpetrated on Lieutenant Colonel John Brow, United States 
     Marine Corps, and Major Brooks Gruber, United States Marine 
     Corps, in attributing the cause of the MV 22 mishap in 
     Marana, Arizona, on April 8, 2000, to aircrew error. At the 
     time of the mishap, I was the principal

[[Page H1207]]

     analyst for the V 22 as a research staff member at the 
     Institute For Defense Analyses, a nonprofit organization 
     supporting the Department of Defense Office of Director of 
     Operational Test and Evaluation.

  Madam Speaker, another individual who's an expert that joined us in 
this effort to clear the names of John Brow and Brooks Gruber is Phil 
Coyle, and I want to quote what he put in an email to me on November 8, 
2000:

       Major Gruber should not be blamed for flying his aircraft 
     on a flight path that he was not trained to fly and expected 
     to fly. The Marine Corps knows today that flight path was 
     lethal, but they did not know it then, and neither did Major 
     Gruber. Considering it was ignorance on the part of the 
     Marine Corps that caused the April 8, 2000 accident, the 
     Marine Corps should make it clear to Major Gruber's family--
     with no ifs, ands, or buts--that Major Gruber was not 
     responsible for the accident.

  Madam Speaker, I continue to go on, because this has been a 10-year 
effort for the families of John Brow and Brooks Gruber.
  Madam Speaker, the Marine Corps, shortly after the accident, assigned 
three marines the day after the accident on April 8 to fly to Arizona 
and to do their own investigation for the United States Marine Corps. 
At the time, Colonel Mike Morgan was the lead investigator, assisted by 
Colonel Ron Radich and also Major Phil Stackhouse.
  In the JAGMAN report that was the official report for the Marine 
Corps of the accident, on page 77 they stated:

       During this investigation we found nothing that we would 
     characterize as negligence, deliberate pilot error, or 
     maintenance/material failure.

  Madam Speaker, in this 10-year journey to clear the names of these 
two Marine pilots, I reached out to the attorneys. John Brow and Brooks 
Gruber, their families employed Jim Furman, an attorney in Texas, who 
himself, was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. He is an outstanding 
attorney, and he defended the two pilots when they went and filed suit 
against Bell Boeing.
  In a letter on April 28, 2010, from Jim Furman to me in this effort 
to clear the names of John Brow and Brooks Gruber, he wrote:

       It was not the mission of the operation evaluation crew to 
     discover the new boundaries and limitations associated with 
     the V 22. Engineering test pilots, under appropriate test 
     conditions, should have done this. It is simply wrong and 
     improper to place this burden upon Gruber and Brow. They did 
     the best job they could have done under the circumstances.
       Prior to the March 2000 crash, the Navy already had reports 
     of strange asymmetric response in the aircraft. These events 
     should have been completely investigated before any more 
     operational testing continued.

  Madam Speaker, I have over seven or eight emails that are two or 
three pages from Jim Furman in his effort to help us clear the names of 
Colonel John Brow and Major Brooks Gruber.
  From the attorney for the 17 marines' families who were in the V 22 
that crashed--and these young men were killed in that crash--Brian 
Alexander defended the 17 families, and he said:

       Please thank Congressman Jones for contacting me and assure 
     him that I stand by ready to assist him in any way that I 
     can. As a former Army aviator and lawyer who had the 
     privilege of representing the marines who gave their lives in 
     the Marana crash, I applaud the Congressman's efforts to 
     clear the names of pilots Gruber and Brow from any and all 
     blame for this senseless tragedy. Due to these undisputed 
     reasons, the pilots are not to blame and should be fully 
     exonerated.

  Again, the two attorneys, Jim Furman in Texas and Brian Alexander in 
New York, they defended the families in the lawsuit that was settled 
out of court by Bell Boeing. Madam Speaker, I also would like to share 
for the Record--you might say, well, if the lawsuits are over, then why 
won't the Marine Corps give the families what they are looking for as a 
clear exoneration of John Brow and Brooks Gruber?
  Madam Speaker, I can't answer that but recently, about 4 months ago, 
I had the pleasure of meeting with General Rutter, who was representing 
the Commandant, and he was asking what would help the wives bring this 
to an end, so to speak. There is no way you can replace the husbands 
and the 17 marines who were burned to death. So the wives gave me a 
paragraph that they would like for the Marine Corps to issue to them on 
Marine Corps stationery and also a press release, Madam Speaker, and it 
states:

       The United States Marine Corps concurs that pilots 
     Lieutenant Colonel John Brow and Major Brooks Gruber were not 
     at fault for the April 8, 2000, Osprey accident. The original 
     accident report will officially include this statement of 
     fact. A copy of the official statement will be formally 
     presented to the Gruber and Brow families as written evidence 
     to this fact. A press release and formal statement will also 
     be publicly issued by military officials.

  Madam Speaker, I don't know why the Marine Corps has not been willing 
to give the families this closure that they have asked for.
  I just touched on a few of the letters of many people who were so 
familiar with the program and the V 22 in the early stages that have 
joined in this effort, so it is hard to understand why the Marine Corps 
will not give the families this one paragraph. Madam Speaker, I will 
continue to work and to speak out because that's the least that the 
Marine Corps can do for these families.
  Let me also share that I reached out to the investigators, Major 
Morgan, Major Radich, and Major Stackhouse. Madam Speaker, they in July 
and August of this year sent me 2-page letters from each one of them 
stating clearly that if there is anything in the JAGMAN report that has 
been misunderstood, that they found it was pilot error, to please have 
it recanted because that's not what they wrote in the JAGMAN.

                              {time}  1840

  Madam Speaker, I have a copy of the JAGMAN. I have read from one page 
what they said about the pilots on page 77 that nothing was done by the 
pilots in a deliberate way to cause the accident.
  Madam Speaker, I'd like to read now just a couple of sentences from 
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Morgan's letter back to me. He again was the 
lead investigator that wrote the JAGMAN report. He said:

       John Brow and Brooks Gruber performed as model wingmen on 
     this mission. They were doing exactly what was expected of a 
     wingman on a tactical flight.

  Lieutenant Colonel Morgan further stated:

       John Brow and Brooks Gruber did their job, and did it well. 
     I look forward to the day when DOD officials accurately 
     recognize the sacrifice made by them and all the marines of 
     Nighthawk 72.

  From Lieutenant Colonel Ron Radich, he was the assistant JAGMAN 
investigator:

       It would be morally wrong to place the blame on the pilots 
     of Nighthawk 72. Prior to the mishap, control measures to 
     mitigate the risk of vortex ring state were deficient. With 
     no knowledge, training, or warning concerning the possible 
     consequences of vortex ring state, the pilots of Nighthawk 72 
     were essentially on their own in uncharted territory.

  Madam Speaker, what Colonel Radich is saying is that they were put 
into the cockpit flying this plane with 19 marines, counting the two 
pilots on this plane, and they had no idea of how to react to the 
condition known as vortex ring state, VRS. They had not been trained. 
The plane was not even prepared to warn them of such a happening.
  And the third investigator, Madam Speaker, was Captain Phil 
Stackhouse and he said:

       I do not feel that our investigation reflects that the 
     mishap was a result of pilot error and if this investigation 
     was interpreted that way, it was misinterpreted. For any 
     record that reflects the mishap was a result of pilot error, 
     it should be corrected. For any publication that reflects the 
     mishap was a result of pilot error, it should be corrected 
     and recanted.

  Madam Speaker, there cannot be stronger support for this change to 
make sure that the Marine Corps would issue a statement to the families 
and also issue to the families a paragraph that would clearly state 
that their husbands were not at fault.
  Madam Speaker, some people might just say, Congressman, why have you 
spent 10 years trying to clear the names of two pilots that you never 
knew?
  Well, Connie Gruber, the wife of Major Brooks Gruber, she does live 
in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and she and her a little girl, Brook, 
deserve to have this paragraph for the future of their family, to 
clearly state that the pilots were not at fault.
  Trish Brow lives over in California, Maryland. John Brow was her 
husband,

[[Page H1208]]

and I have been with one of her sons, Michael, who was in my office a 
year ago in March when we talked about our strategy to clear the names 
of these two marine pilots. I never will forget that Michael leaned up 
after we talked, about five adults, including his mom in there, and he 
leaned up and he said, May I say something? And we all said, Certainly, 
whatever you'd like to say. And he said, Will you please let me clear 
my father's name.
  Madam Speaker, the ball is in the Marine Corps' court. All of the 
evidence and all of the experts have joined in this effort to clear the 
names of the two pilots. On these charts, you can see the faces of the 
two marine pilots. Right immediately close to me is Colonel John Brow, 
the pilot; and beside him is Major Brooks Gruber, who was the copilot. 
I think about what I have said to the wives and to their sons and 
daughters: It's time that the Marine Corps salute Colonel John Brow and 
Major Brooks Gruber and say, Colonel and Major, you may rest in peace. 
Don't ever worry about your name again. We have done everything we can 
as the United States Marine Corps to make sure that the public knows 
that you two, pilot and copilot, were not at fault for that tragedy on 
April 8 of 2000.
  Madam Speaker, just a couple more minutes and I will bring my 
comments to a close.
  I had someone send to me a quote by Voltaire that says, ``To the 
living, we owe respect; to the dead, we owe the truth.'' And that's why 
I wanted to be on the floor tonight to share just a few comments by the 
experts, not by me. I am no expert. I'm just one man who believes what 
the wife said, Connie Gruber:

       My husband and John Brow cannot speak for themselves. 
     Someone has to speak for these two men to clear their names.

  The lawsuits are over. They were settled out of court. It was a 
closed settlement. Nobody knows the figures except the families. I've 
never heard a figure, so I have no idea. But I know one thing. When a 
firm as large as Bell-Boeing, which manufactured the V 22, when they 
settle out of court, they must feel some responsibility for the 
accident.
  I hope and pray that soon the Marine Corps will close the chapter on 
the tragedy in the life of Trish Brow and Connie Gruber. The reason 
they want the letter, Madam Speaker, is so their children, 10, 15, 20 
years from now, whenever there's another article written about the V 22 
crash in Arizona in the year 2000 and they misstate that this was pilot 
error, that the families will have an official letter from the 
Commandant of the Marine Corps that will clearly state that John Brow 
and Brooks Gruber were not at fault.
  Madam Speaker, I'm going to close in about 2 minutes.
  I want to call on the United States Marine Corps to come forward and 
give the families what they are asking. The three investigators, as I 
said earlier, have joined in this. Jim Shaffer, Madam Speaker, who was 
in the air at the same time as this crash, he was flying a V 22 when 
the other two were flying and before Nighthawk 72 crashed. He was a 
friend of John Brow and Brooks Gruber. He has joined in this effort. He 
believes that the right thing to do, based on the circumstances of the 
time, that the right thing to do is to say that the two pilots were not 
at fault.

  Madam Speaker, I want to thank you for staying a little bit later 
tonight to give me this time. I'm not going to take the full 30 
minutes. There is a lot more I could say, but I think that I've done 
the first step of what is going to be many steps in coming to the floor 
and talking about these two pilots and their families until we get the 
letter from the Commandant that is just one paragraph that clearly 
states that Lieutenant Colonel John Brow, Major Brooks Gruber, pilot 
and copilot, were not at fault for the crash that happened on April 8, 
2000, in Arizona.
  So with that, Madam Speaker, I will ask God to please bless the 
families of these two pilots and the families of the 17 marines who 
were in the back of the V 22 that crashed and 19 died, to bless those 
families as well. I will ask God to please touch the heart of the 
United States Marine Corps so that these two marines can rest in peace.
  Madam Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________