Air Force blames goggles case for crash that killed 14 - Bob Cummins, Period 6

       In October of last year, an enormous C-130J cargo plane killed 14 people in a crash in Afghanistan.  The case is now being blamed on the misuse of night-vision goggles case.  At first, the Taliban claimed that Islamic fighters sabotaged the flight, but military officials ruled that option out very quickly.  It was discovered that before the flight, the pilot placed the goggles case in front of the cockpit yoke, a mechanism for steering the plane.  During the first few seconds of the flight, the plane's nose came up too much, and the pilot tried to adjust by moving the yoke forward; he could not because the goggles case blocked it.  The report said that though removing obstacles from the controls was not in the pre-flight protocol, the pilot and copilot were still held responsible for remembering to remove the goggles from the controls.  The people who died were the pilot, the co-pilot, two members of security, two loadmasters, 5 contractors who were passengers, and three men in a watchtower that the plane crashed into.  The C-130J costs $48.5 million dollars per craft.
       This can be compared to the sinking of the USS Maine which catalyzed the beginning of the Spanish-American War.  The way Hearst made it look like sabotage is similar to the way the Taliban tried to make it look like they sabotaged the flight.  This did not work because of modern investigation methods and technology that eliminates ordeals like the Spanish-American War from happening.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/19/politics/us-air-force-plane-crash-afghanistan/index.html