MIAMI -- A Wisconsin mercenary shot down over Nicaragua during a Contra supply mission testified Thursday that his employers failed to provide needed equipment and that he would be dead if he hadn't bought his own parachute.
Eugene Hasenfus, 49, was the sole survivor on the four-man mission to Nicaragua in 1986. Their transport plane, carrying arms and ammunition to the Contra rebels, was owned by Southern Air Transport of Miami, a cargo company with ties to the CIA.
Hasenfus was captured and convicted in Nicaragua for crimes against the state. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but was pardoned Dec. 17, 1986, and returned to his home near Marinette, Wis., two days later.
Hasenfus and his wife, Sally, sued Southern Air and former Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard Secord, who allegedly had ties to the company, charging they failed to protect him and failed to pay for his defense in Nicaragua.
Kasanee Sawyer and Nockrope Sawyer, the wife and 7-year-old son of Wallace 'Buzz' Sawyer, one of the crew members killed when the plane was shot down, joined suit, seeking compensation for Sawyer's death.
Hasenfus testified at the trial of his civil suit that he was hired by Southern Air with the understanding that he was working for the U.S. government-backed 'Enterprise' project and that the flights would be protected. He said he was forced to sign a secrecy agreement.
'My understanding was I was working for the U.S. government-backed Contras,' he said. 'I agreed to work for the Enterprise solely on the U.S. government backing the Contras. It was a time of need and they needed somebody.'
Hasenfus was the first witness to testify in the case.
He told jurors that Southern Air provided him with shoddy equipment and denied numerous requests for parachutes and other survival equipment.
Hasenfus recalled several missions he flew using inadequate equipment.
'We didn't have parachutes,' he told jurors in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Clyde Atkins.
'The intercom systems were inoperative half the time. There was no survival equipment,' he said. 'We wanted to get better parachutes and update our survival equipment but we didn't get any of that.'
Hasenfus, who testified for five hours, said Secord also was to blame for the lack of proper equipment.
'Gen. Secord, being in charge of the higher rank of this command, did not provide our Enterprise with the proper equipment,' he said.
He said he had previously flown supply missions at night, but that Southern Air ordered him to fly in the daytime, when his plane would be more visible.
'It was much more dangerous to fly during the day,' he said. 'I went on the (day missions) because that is what they wanted me to do.'
Hasenfus said he survived because he had bought his own parachute from his brother's sporting good store. He was able to parachute to safety when Sandinista soldiers shot down the plane with a heat-seeking missile Oct. 5, 1986, but he had no other equipment except a jacknife and a Russian pistol.
Sawyer's wife and his parents, Buzz Sr. and Margaret, all of Magnolia, Ark., wept as Hasenfus recounted the moments before the plane crashed.
'Buzz Sawyer was a pilot's pilot. He was an individual everybody looked up to,' Hasenfus said. 'His last words to me were 'What happened?' I said 'We took a hit.' Those were my last words to him.'
Hasenfus said he was trying to make his way through Nicaraguan jungles to the border of Costa Rica when he was captured the next day.
'There were people all around me and I started moving to my front and there were two Sandinistas,' Hasenfus said. 'I had to make a decision of whether to surrender or have a standoff with this jacknife and pistol I had. I surrendered.'
He told the four-woman, two-man jury he was an air freight specialist who served in the Marines for five years, then worked for Air America, a covert freight operation that supplied arms and ammunition in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1974.
He said he was approached by a William Cooper, a Southern Air pilot in Miami in July 1986 was asked to work for the Enterprise. Hasenfus was hired as a 'kicker,' the person who pushed supplies out of the plane as it passed over an area.
The suit seeks unspecified damages, asking jurors to award compensation for expenses incurred, lost income, attorneys fees, emotional distress and loss of support.
Southern Air contends it had made no agreement with Hasenfus to provide protection against the Sandinistas or trial expenses. The defense claims that Hasenfus was hired by a company called Corporate Air Services as an independent contractor.
Lawyers for Secord said he was not involved with equipping the plane. Secord received a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to a felony charge of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair.
