Air Force admits mistake in getting civilian PIO to delete images & tweets from F-16 crash

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Watch Mark Brady’s updated comments on the F-16 incident after latest Air Force comments

While at a community meeting Tuesday following last week’s F-16 crash in Clinton, Maryland, the U.S. Air Force Commander of the 11th Wing and Joint Base Andrews admitted a mistake was made when a military police sergeant requested a civilian public information officer delete images and tweets.

https://twitter.com/TraceeWilkins/status/852168248896495616

That civilian PIO was Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department Chief Spokesman Mark Brady. Brady provided an update about the incident in his PIO Live series at Battalion TV and during the video said the Air Force confirmed the mistake was made by a lower level officer. (The latest video from Brady is with DC Fire & EMS Department PIO Vito Maggiolo, continuing a theme I noted last week.)

Previous coverage of this story

Colonel E. John Teichert indicated this request should not have been made and that moving forward, it would be included in future training exercises.

Brady, in the spirit of cooperation, agreed to first delete images and then tweets at the request of the sergeant. Last week, Brady confirmed that he knew the images and videos would not be lost because they were still in the delete file on his phone.

FireLawBlog.com publisher Curt Varone pointed out in a Facebook conversation last week that the deletion request by the military was actually a request to delete public records of a local government and the destruction of potential evidence.

Perhaps the President of @united should take note of how @usairforce Spokesperson at @JBA_NAFW handled a bad media situation #PGFD https://t.co/auliCClaBY

— Mark Brady (@PIOMarkBrady) April 12, 2017