This day in 1998 saw the Cavalese cable car disaster, where a United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler aircraft cut the cable supporting a gondola of an aerial tramway near the Italian town of Cavalese, a ski resort in the Dolomites.
Twenty people were killed when the cabin they were in plunged 260 feet and they fell to their deaths. The pilot, Captain Richard J. Ashby and his navigator, Captain Joseph Schweitzer, were put on trial in the United States and found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide. They were, however, later found guilty of obstruction of justice and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman for having destroyed a videotape recorded from the plane and were dismissed from the Marine Corps. The disaster, and the subsequent acquittal of the pilots, strained relationships between the United States and Italy.