Egyptian plane skids off runway in Turkey
     ISTANBUL, Turkey (August 11, 1997 6:34 p.m. EDT) -- An EgyptAir
 jetliner from Cairo skidded off the runway and into mud while land-
 ing Monday at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, the Anatolia news agency
 said.
     All 136 passengers and 14 crew members aboard the Boeing-767
 left the plane safely, the report said.
     Eighteen passengers were injured at the same airport a year ago
 when another EgyptAir plane missed the runway, skidded onto a road
 and hit a taxi.
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 Fine Air denies overloading planes
     MIAMI (August 11, 1997 7:05 p.m. EDT) -- In the wake of a fatal
 air crash in Miami, the president of Fine Air Monday rejected
 allegations by former employees that the cargo carrier routinely
 overloaded its planes.
     "We refute in the strongest terms possible any allegations about
 Fine Air made by a few former employees," Barry Fine, president and
 chief executive officer of Fine Air, said in a statement he read to
 reporters.
     "We have and will continue to run a safe air cargo transporta-
 tion service with the highest integrity and standards."
     A Fine Air DC-8 loaded with a cargo of denim for factories in
 the Dominican Republic crashed on take-off from Miami International
 Airport last Thursday, killing four people on board and one person
 on the ground.
     In the wake of the accident former employees were quoted in
 local media as saying that Fine Air planes were frequently
 overloaded.
     National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators said
 at the weekend they had ruled out overloading as the cause of Thurs-
 day's crash as the plane had climbed to 600 feet before it
 plummeted. They are now focusing on whether the load was properly
 secured.
     "We are interested in how the cargo was loaded on the plane and
 really that's the focus of our investigation, NTSB official Robert
 Benzon told Miami's ABC-affiliate WPLG News.
     "It's too early to make a conclusion on that...there may have
 been some discrepancies there," he said.
     Benzon said "quite a few" locks used to secure pallets to the
 cargo hold's floor had been found undamaged, indicating they were
 never locked.
     Thursday's ill-fated flight was loaded by a freight company
 named Aeromar. Fine said he was taking immediate steps to ensure
 that all Fine Air aircraft were safely loaded, whether Fine Air or
 an outside shipper was handling the cargo.
     "Let me stress that Fine Air has had an excellent safety record
 -- more than 30,000 flights in our five-year history, without a
 single accident until last week," he said.
     He also said that an ongoing Federal Aviation Administration
 investigation into 29 Fine Air crewmen had nothing to do with
 flight safety.
     "This is a matter involving administrative documents for cargo
 flights operated into two specific high-altitude airports in South
 America. None of these flights dealt with overweight aircraft," he
 said.
     The crewmen, whose licences the FAA wants suspended, will con-
 tinue to fly during the investigation which could take between six
 months and a year, he said.
     Fine Air has been operating normally since the crash, he added.
 The airline, which also handles aircraft maintenance, is one of the
 biggest cargo operators based in Miami. It flys to the Caribbean
 and Latin America.
     Fine also expressed sympathy to the families of the five victims
 of the crash.
     One of them, Renato Alvarez, was buried in Miami Monday. He had
 been bringing home lunch for his wife when the plane crashed. It
 ploughed across a main road, scooping up his car as it erupted
 into flames.
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