AGANA, Guam -- The investigation at the site of a Korean Air jet
 crash in Guam is nearly over, with much of the data already returned
 to Washington for analysis. In Texas, an 11-year old American survi-
 vor has died from burns suffered in the crash that took 226 lives.
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               (The Guessing begins - Jim)
 Korean Air Lines says it's too early to blame crash on pilot error
     SEOUL (August 10, 1997 10:05 p.m. EDT) ---- Korean Air Lines is
 defending itself against a U.S. news report blaming the deadly crash
 of one of its airplanes in the Pacific island of Guam on pilot
 error.
     The airline says such conclusions are too hasty.
     "We are not yet ruling out the possibility of a sudden change in
 altitude caused by torrential rains, the breakdown of the glide
 slope or other elements, which combined, could have caused the
 accident," KAL said.
     The U.S. TV network NBC's "Nightly News" on Thursday quoted
 unidentified sources as saying the initial analysis of the record-
 ers showed the crash of KAL's Boeing 747 carrying 254 people was
 caused by pilot error.
     It said the pilots apparently homed in on a radio signal on a
 hilltop three miles from the airport, mistakenly believing they
 were homing in on the runway.
     They then made a straight descent on to the hillside, and
 lowered the landing gear before they hit, disabling the alarm
 system that would have warned them of the impending crash, NBC
 said.
     The wreckage, with the fuselage broken into four sections, lies
 below a crest near a guidance beacon and in sight of the runway.
 Twenty-nine of the people on board the plane survived.
     The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) office in
 Washington and investigators in Guam said they had no comment on
 the report.
     KAL said it was still too early to determine the cause of the
 accident.
     The glide slope, a portion of a landing instrument that guides
 the planes to the runway, has been out of service, according to
 Guam officials, and KAL acknowledges it had been notified and was
 aware of the absence of the instrument.
     KAL also sought to dispel rumors that the pilot was not ex-
 perienced and could have been tired.
     "Park Yong-chul was a veteran pilot with almost 9,000 hours of
 flight time," the statement said, also showing Park's flight sched-
 ule and rest time in the week leading up to the accident. He had
 32 hours and 40 minutes of rest before his last flight.
     Separately on Friday, NTSB investigators said the KAL jet that
 crashed did not suffer any engine or structural failure before im-
 pact, adding that the crew were apparently not aware of any problems
 as the aircraft approached the airport.
     But George Black, leader of the NTSB team investigating the
 crash, said at a news conference that the cause of the crash was
 far from being determined.
     He discounted media reports that officials had tentatively con-
 cluded pilot error was to blame. "Those reports are pure speculation
 and are based on things that we have not even looked at," he said.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------
     Cargo is focus of investigation in Miami cargo plane crash
     MIAMI (August 10, 1997 8:07 p.m. EDT) ---- The 45 tons of denim
 aboard the cargo plane that crashed on take-off did not appear to
 be secured properly because more than half of the plane's latches
 were found unlocked, an investigator said Sunday.
     "If this investigation does have a focus, a mere three days into
 it, it would have to be cargo," said Robert Benzon, who is heading
 the investigation for the National Transportation Safety Board.
     Benzon said, however, that investigators have not found any
 damage to the inside of the plane that would indicate a massive
 cargo shift that could have caused the front end of the plane to
 nose skyward severely.
     But Benzon cautioned that crucial evidence was missing, because
 the center of the fuselage was destroyed in the crash Thursday of
 the Dominican Republic-bound Fine Air DC-8 on take-off from Miami
 International Airport.
     Investigators scoured the crash site in a busy wholesale dis-
 trict near the airport during the weekend and recovered 49 of 90
 latches intended to hold the plane's cargo in place. Forty-eight of
 those were in the unlocked position, Benzon said.
    "They should have been locked," he said.
    The 41 remaining aluminum devices, which weigh just under 3
 pounds, most likely melted shortly after the fiery crash, Benzon
 said.
     Benzon also said the three employees that loaded the cargo had
 no formal training in loading planes. Federal regulations do not
 require any special training.
     "There is no real formal training for this, the training is on
 the job," Benzon said. He said although the three loaders demon-
 strated the proper loading procedure to investigators, "they des-
 cribed a somewhat confusing loading process."
     The twisted and charred remains of the jet's four engines were
 hauled away Sunday from the crash site and taken to the company's
 engine maintenance facility five miles away.
     On Saturday, investigators announced that the load of 45 tons
 of textiles was not above the plane's capacity, removing excess
 weight as a possible cause of the crash.
     The investigation has exposed problems with the plane's flight
 data box, which malfunctioned. The recorder provided information
 about the aircraft's speed during and just after takeoff, but
 apparently didn't record other data such as the plane's pitch,
 heading, and engine thrust.
     The cockpit voice recorder worked properly and its data should
 be released early next week.
--- DB 1.39/004487
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