"We conducted about 200 interviews during the investigation," said Maj. Steve Murray, spokesman for the Office of Special Investigations. "No credible evidence to support theories of homosexuality, financial difficulties, family conflicts, militia ties or any other possible motivation has been discovered."
Murray said there are no plans to reopen the investigation. "(The Air Force) thoroughly explored all potentially relevant areas of Captain Button's life in an effort to better understand the circumstances which may have contributed to this event," he added.
The report notes a phone call the night before Button's exercise with live bombs on the Barry M. Goldwater Bombing Ranger near Gila Bend. The April 1 call appeared to have upset Button, who refused to discuss it with his roommate, the newspaper said.
"Something about the last few days and troubling telephone calls was enormously upsetting to him," the report said. "We may never know why he was in such much turmoil or with whom he talked."
Though Button and the woman were stationed at different Air Force bases, the two kept in contact through letters in the months after a 1991 ski trip, the report said.
But the woman said she never considered having a monogamous relationship with Button.
Button called the woman the afternoon before his final flight, but she had to cut the conversation short because she was at work, the report said.
The final area the report looks into is Button's religious beliefs and possible conflicts with his job as a fighter pilot. His mother is a devout Jehovah's Witness opposed to killing, the newspaper said.
His parents were in Tucson days before his death. They told investigators they had talked with their son about the end of the world. Button then asked for more information on the subject.
Investigators found in Button's bed-stand the Bible and a religious pamphlet, which described "God asking a father to sacrifice his only son on a burning pyre at the side of a mountain," the report said.
"Capt. Craig Button intended to die or be rescued by divine intervention of God at the last possible moment," the report said. "Did that struggle to free himself of his mother's religious beliefs collapse at the moment of truth? Here he was -- the next step in the mission was to become a full- fledged 'bomb-dropping people killer.' Until now, flying was an art, not a killing science."
A-10 FIGHTER STILL MISSING
After an intensive search lasting seven days, and
the expenditure of just over $1 million, the U.S. Air
Force has not yet located the A-10 fighter-bomber
that vanished on April 2.
The plane, piloted by Capt. Craig D. Buttons of
Massapequa, N.Y., broke formation west of Tucson,
Arizona the morning of April 2 and flew all the way
to Colorado. The last radar image put the plane
near New York Mountain, near Vail, Colorado.
On Monday, April 14, after identifying six possible
crash sites, terrain teams went in, covering grids
measuring 13 by 17 miles. The Air Force sent in a
radar-laden SR-71 Blackbird, and the Army dispatched
two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from Fort Carson,
Colorado.
Clear weather on Wednesday, April 16, was a major
help to the Civil Air Patrol planes searching the snow-
covered Sawatch Mountains. Two suspected crash
sites were visited by ground searchers, but the team
found only metal pipes sticking out of the snow.
The Air Force also mentioned Wednesday that the
A-10 was carrying 575 rounds of ammunition for its
30mm Gatling gun in addition to the four 500-pound
Mark 82 GP bombs.
On Friday, April 18, the Air Force announced that
it would scale back its intensified search early next
week if no trace of the A-10 is found.
According to USA Today, "Air Force officials
confirmed Thursday that that a spy satellite detected
an 'infrared event' - possibly a crash fireball or bomb
explosion--in the rugged wilderness mountains where
the (A-10) Warthog attack jet is thought to have gone
down on April 2."
"But that evidence seemed at odds with records
from about 40 seismic detectors in the terrain
surrounding the New York Mountain crash site."
"Lt. Gen. Frank Campbell, commander of the
(Davis-Monthan) Tucson air base where missing
Capt. Craig Button was stationed, said Thursday that
the instruments recorded 'no seismic indications
during the time of this flight.' He said experts say
a crash or bomb explosion...likely would have
registered 1.9 on the Richter scale for ground-
movement readings. Campbell said he wasn't
qualified to explain what the lack of data means."
(See USA Today, April 18, 1997, page 3A)
Investigators have concluded that Button was in control and flying the plane. According to ABC, investigators noted that Button buzzed several ski areas and made a detailed approach to a small airport in Colorado.
http://web.gosanangelo.com/archive/97/october/25/6.htmNNS3704. Navy joins A-10 recovery operations
courtesy of Air Force Space Command News Service
EAGLE, Colo. (NWSA) -- A Navy team of explosive
ordnance disposal technicians has joined the Air Force's
efforts in recovering munitions from an A-10 that crashed in
the Rocky Mountains last spring.
Fifteen people from EOD Mobile Unit 7 in San Diego
arrived Sunday, Aug. 25, to begin assessing how they will
conduct a search of six lakes near Gold Dust Peak, the
13,365-foot summit where Capt. Craig Button's aircraft
crashed April 2.
The focus of the operation is to verify each lake is
safe for public use, as well as to attempt to locate any
underwater ordnance.
Since early July, Air Force para-rescue specialists and
EOD technicians have scoured the area for the A-10's
munitions and pyrotechnic devices, human remains and
wreckage pertinent to the accident investigation.
The six-week-old operation has yielded an estimated
five tons of the 14-ton aircraft, but still missing are the
four 500-pound bombs on board the aircraft when it departed
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.
The EOD team specializes in locating underwater
ordnance using side scan sonar, cameras on remotely operated
vehicles and various underwater metal detectors. If
evidence of a MK-82 bomb is found in one of the lakes, Navy
divers will work to verify its identification and determine
how to safely dispose of it.
Each lake search will take an estimated two days,
weather permitting.
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/news/navnews/nns97/nns97037.txtIncreasingly tonight, investigators believe that New York Mountain 100 miles west of Vail, is where a missing attack jet like this one piloted by Capt. Craig Button crashed one week ago, conclusions based on radar records and new public sightings.
A motorist’s account of seeing black smoke billowing from New York Mountain on the day the jet vanished was corroborated today by a group of cross-country skiers who were on a nearby ridge-line. One of them, Tim Cochran of Vail Mountain Rescue, said: "the most notable thing was a large black cloud formed after they heard what they reported as a boom or vroom." A huge explosion, said the skiers, followed by an enormous black cloud, but they never saw the plane. Says Cochran: "two of the people on the ridge when they heard this and saw this black cloud form thought it was a large thunder cell, skied off the ridge immediately into the trees for their own safety."
Bad weather halted aerial surveys of the site today a one-square-mile area at the 11,000-foot level too difficult to reach on foot, too overcast to see anything. And the transponder, which could help locate the plane, was turned off, routine during training missions.
Major Joel Best of the Army National Guard, who has been searching for the plane, said "I honestly believe we've overflown the wreckage. I think we've overflown and haven't been able to decipher where exactly it is, what it looks like."
But the mystery remains tonight why Capt. Button veered so far off course from the Tucson area in his bomb-loaded attack jet 800 miles off course. And if he was somehow incapacitated and the plane was on automatic pilot, as one theory has it, how did the jet change course twice over Montrose, Colorado? A maneuver that requires the guiding hand of the pilot?
an unusual occurrence with an answer that may be buried in the side of a snow covered mountain. Jerry Bowen, CBS news Los Angeles.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/publications/cbs_topstory.html
How many phone calls?
The Tucson Citizen in April of last year reported the military was investigating the possibility Button may have been gay and that he killed himself fearing exposure and forced discharge from the military. The official report makes reference to gay allegations and a newspaper story about a telephone call, made days before Button's disappearance, from a man who claimed to be the pilot's gay lover.
The Air Force report pointedly draws no definitive answers as to why the 32-year-old Button broke formation, and after three hours and 500 miles on erratic course, crashed his fully loaded A-10 attack jet into a mountainside.
"We conducted about 200 interviews during the investigation," said Maj.
Steve Murray, spokesman for the Office of Special Investigations. "No credible evidence to support theories of homosexuality, financial difficulties, family conflicts, militia ties or any other possible motivation has been discovered."
The report says the pilot's roommate told investigators Button appeared deeply unsettled in the days leading up to his disappearance. "Something about the last few days and troubling telephone calls was enormously upsetting to him," the report said. "We may never knew why he was in such much turmoil or with whom he talked."
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:XY1Vh_Q7FKwJ:www.datalounge.com/datalounge/news/record.html%3Frecord%3D3667+%22Capt.+Craig+Button%22+phone+call&hl=en
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> The Air Force report, based on interviews with friends, fellow fliers and
>relatives, sketches a picture of a "perfectionist" who was inwardly torn by
>his relationships with his mother and a former girlfriend.
>
> Before releasing the report, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations
>blacked out almost all the names of people interviewed.
>
> Two points were not a part of the report. After Button's plane disappeared,
>but before its wreckage was found several days later, rumors circulated widely
>that he was connected to right-wing paramilitary groups and had taken the jet
>and its payload for use by those organizations.
> A classmate from the Reserve Officer Training Corps told an Air Force
>investigator that Craig's "mother would not allow him to wear his ROTC uniform
>in the house."
> Lt. Brian Gross, a pilot who shared an apartment with Button at Davis-
>Monthan Air Force Base, near Tucson, Ariz., said that in the month before the
>disappearance, Button's "mother became increasingly vocal in her negative
>feelings towards her son's job and role in the military."
> In contrast, Button was said by many friends to have revered his father, and
>his father's half-brother, Lt. Donald Hurlburt. Hurlburt, a B-17 pilot who
>flew over Germany in World War II, crashed in Florida in 1943. Hurlburt Field
>in Florida is named for him
But in the weeks before the crash, Button seemed to some people to be
>disillusioned with his life in the military. A former landlord in Texas
>recalled to an investigator that in two telephone conversations prior to his
>death, the pilot seemed "out of character," saying that he was "learning to
>kill people."
> The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, a Jehovah's Witness group which
>arranged the telephone interview with Button, also provided a statement on
>their faith and military service: "Jehovah's Witnesses choose to abide by the
>principle outlined in the Bible to 'beat their swords into ploughshares.'
>However, they do not interfere with or oppose individuals who choose to serve
>in the military."
more
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:fcqTBWQ1BL8J:groups.yahoo.com/group/gulf-chat/message/4405+%22Capt.+Craig+Button%22+phone+call&hl=en
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