Air Force General Court Martialed For ‘Assuming Control’ Of C-17 Too Soon After Drinking

A court martial has fined Air Force Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart $60,000 and confined him to Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, for six months after he flew a C-17 in low-level maneuvers following a night of drinking. In the first court martial of its kind, a jury of eight generals, all of whom outranked Stewart, found him guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and dereliction of duty by "assuming control" of the transport plane at Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma during a trip in April of 2023.

He had earlier admitted to adultery and having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate officer and was found not guilty of sexual assault involving that officer. The charges resulted from that evening and from an earlier encounter in which he invited a female subordinate to spend the night with him at a hotel in Denver on another work trip. Stewart, who commanded the 19th Air Force at the time, was relieved of that command a few days after the Oklahoma evening. The 19th Air Force is in charge of training.