On two consecutive days this week, disaster visited Fort Meade, an Army facility located north of Washington, D.C.  On Thursday, two people died when a small plane crashed nearby and Friday, a six-alarm blaze struck one of the facility's buildings.

The chances of such a convergence must be remote. Still, the events might have drawn little notice beyond the local community were it not that Fort Meade is home to the Army's largest counter-intelligence unit, criticized for its domestic surveillance of peaceful activist groups. This fact, irregularities in accounts of the incidents, and evasiveness by government officials invite closer scrutiny of the unfortunate events.