Report Clears Blue Angels Leaders

By BILL KACZOR, AP

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP), A Navy report released this week has cleared two Blue Angels flight leaders of wrongdoing in how they handled allegations of adultery and other improprieties within the precision flying team.

Anonymous letters to the Navy and Pensacola News Journal had accused flight leader Cmdr. Pat Driscoll and his predecessor, Capt. George Dom, of failing to punish wrongdoers and treating officers more leniently than enlisted personnel.

Last month, Driscoll removed a married pilot and female public affairs officer, both named in the letters, from the flight squadron based at Pensacola Naval Air Station for what he called a ``loss of trust and confidence.''

They were reassigned for disobeying orders to end a personal relationship and avoid contact to prevent any perception that something inappropriate was going on, said Cmdr. Jack Papp, a Navy spokesman.

But a Navy official who did not want to be identified said Driscoll found no evidence of adultery between the married pilot, Marine Maj. Scott Wedemeyer, and the single female officer, Navy Lt. Tanya Wallace.

The letters also alleged a pilot no longer in the Navy had gotten away with adultery. The pilot denied it, and the investigator wrote that Dom tried but was unable to find any evidence to support the allegation.

A third complaint was about two single Blue Angels officers, one no longer with the team, who had been dating. The public portion of the report released Monday does not indicate how the case was resolved.

Dom had discouraged such dating, and Driscoll prohibits it. The Navy ordinarily does not bar dating that does not constitute adultery or fraternization - which usually involves a relationship, not necessarily sexual, between members of different ranks.  The report was endorsed by Rear Adm. Mike Bucchi, chief of naval air training at Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, Texas, who wrote that Dom and Driscoll handled matters in a manner that was ``thorough, balanced, timely and fair.''

``There was no preferential treatment or inequal treatment of either officer or enlisted members,'' he said.  Bucchi also endorsed the commanders' policy that Blue Angels members should not date each other.

Wedemeyer and Ms. Wallace are awaiting reassignment. Wedemeyer has an unlisted phone and could not be reached for comment. Ms. Wallace was en route to Pensacola from a temporary assignment in Norfolk, Va.

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