Camp Lejeune - Prosecutors pointed to a missing videotape recorded aboard a US Marine jet as evidence the pilot was flying recklessly when the aircraft severed lift cables over an Italian ski village, killing 20 people last year.
Marine Capt Richard Ashby was "flat-hatting", intentionally flying too low and too fast, when his EA-6B Prowler clipped a pair of lift cables, killing everyone in a gondola that plunged to the ground, the prosecutor, Maj Daniel Daugherty, said in closing arguments in the court-martial.
After hearing closing arguments on both sides, an eight man military jury adjourned for lunch and afterwards was to begin deliberations in the case at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.