The Associated Press

DAYTON, Ohio - About 1,000 artifacts, including technology NASA and the Wright brothers used, POW items and military weapons, were reported missing from the U.S. Air Force Museum last year, an audit of the museum found.

The 2002 audit by the Wright-Patterson Area Audit Office concluded that the museum's personnel "did not always effectively manage museum property."

The audit was obtained by a Dayton newspaper, which reported Sunday about the lost items. The museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is the world's oldest and largest military aviation museum.

The museum's director, Maj. Gen. Charles Metcalf, said the number of missing items has been reduced to 510. That's a small number compared with the more than 57,000 items the museum holds, he said.

But he acknowledged that the number only includes items missing from active inventory and doesn't know how many items may be missing from the total inventory.

Among the items missing but not included on the list are weapons and the wooden pattern used to cast the engine that enabled aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright to achieve the first powered flight in 1903.

According to the museum, the engine mold was removed from active inventory to a restoration collection in 1997 and was reported missing in January 2001.

The audit said the person most responsible for the missing items is the museum's former chief of collections, Scott A. Ferguson. Auditors said he disposed of museum property while bypassing required oversight.

Ferguson is under indictment in U.S. District Court, charged with selling an armored vehicle in 1999, knowing it had been stolen from the museum in 1996. His attorney, Larry Greger, declined to comment Sunday.

"It's quite obvious if you have a leak at that level, you could lose your shirt before you knew it," retired Air Force Col. Richard L. Uppstrom, the museum's civilian director from 1985 to 1996, said of the indictment.

The audit showed that during Ferguson's tenure, museum officials poorly documented and often didn't follow procedure when they removed items from active inventory.

The auditors' review of 123 inventory adjustment vouchers, used to document removal of museum property, found that 122 lacked proper authorization and documentation, with some "signed by unauthorized personnel."

• On the Net: www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/