Jimmy Durante, the comic with the big snozz had a saying,
   "Everybody wan't to get in the act!" and it seems so. Jim
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       Navy bomb disposal experts to search Colorado crash site
     WASHINGTON (August 25, 1997 7:52 p.m. EDT) - The Air Force said
 Monday that Navy bomb disposal experts will begin searching six
 mountain lakes in Colorado this week for bombs lost in the myster-
 ious April 2 crash of an A-10 fighter jet.
    The remains of the pilot killed in the crash, Capt. Craig Button,
 were found in late April in wreckage on Gold Dust Peak in the Rocky
 Mountains, but four 500-pound bombs carried by his attack jet have
 not been located.
     The Air Force said 15 members of a special Navy team based in
 San Diego, California, would use remotely-operated underwater
 vehicles equipped with sonar and metal detectors to look for any
 bombs and to "verify that each lake is safe for public use."
     The search will cover New York Lake, Big Pine Lake, the Gold
 Dust Lakes, Big Lake, Horseshoe Lake and Big Spruce Lake, all within
 a mile and a-half of the crash site.
     "First up will be New York lake, which the Navy team estimates
 it could begin searching as early as Wednesday," the Air Force said.
     "Each lake search will take an estimated two days, weather per-
 mitting," the statement said. "The Navy team will be on New York
 Lake Wednesday and Thursday, then could move to Big Pine Lake as
 early as Friday."
     The wreckage of Button's jet was found April 20, 18 days after
 the A-10 mysteriously disappeared during a routine training mission
 in Arizona.
     Air Force officials have been at a loss to explain why Button
 veered northeast into Colorado, some 850 miles away from the
 training exercise.
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            NTSB to explode more fuel tanks in TWA probe
     BOSTON (August 25, 1997 6:10 p.m. EDT) -- Investigators plan to
 blow up more Boeing 747 fuel tanks in an attempt to determine what
 downed TWA Flight 800.
     National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said Mon-
 day he will ask a national laboratory this week to conduct the tests,
 the latest in a series that have yet to pinpoint the cause of the
 July 1996 explosion.
     The testing, which will focus on the 747's center fuel tank,
 should take place within the next six months, Hall said after ad-
 dressing a meeting of the National Emergency Management Association.
     Evidence suggests the explosion originated in the center tank.
 Investigators have not ruled out a missile or bomb as a cause, but
 they suspect mechanical failure is more likely.
     In July, a leased 747 with electronic monitors attached to its
 fuel tanks made nine test flights from Kennedy Airport.
     Earlier this month, investigators set off a series of small
 propane explosions in the fuel tank of a Boeing 747 in England.
     "That was to test structural damage because we didn't use jet
 fuel," NTSB spokeswoman Shelly Hazle said.
     Jet fuel will be used in the upcoming tests. Results from the
 previous tests are still being analyzed.
     A third set of tests -- these on a scale model of the plane --
 is being planned.
     Flight 800 exploded July 17, 1996, shortly after taking off for
 Paris from New York's Kennedy Airport.
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              Air Force predicts future pilot shortage
     WASHINGTON (August 26, 1997 4:52 p.m. EDT) -- The Air Force
 expects to have 350 fewer pilots than it needs next fiscal year
 and to suffer pilot shortages for all aircraft types the year
 after that, a senior Air Force official said Tuesday.
     At present, the Air Force is short fighter pilots and those who
 fly C-130 warplanes, said Brig. Gen. John F. Regni, the director of
 military personnel policy for the service.
     By fiscal year 1999, "all our weapons systems ... will be under-
 manned," he told reporters, saying that includes pilots for tankers,
 transports and fighter planes.
    Last week, the service announced it was taking the highly unusual
 step of canceling all major flying competitions for the rest of the
 year, hoping to ease a workload that many pilots contend is too
 stressful on them and their families.
     To help solve the problem, the Air Force also is cutting the
 number of pilots it believes it needs from 14,000 to 13,500, the
 general said.
     Regni said the Air Force is not retaining the number of exper-
 ienced pilots it has in past years for a number of reasons -- the
 lure of high pay among commercial airlines, the end of the chal-
 lenge of the Cold War, and cutbacks in personnel that translate to
 increased probability pilots will be sent overseas on lengthier
 deployments.
     Senior Air Force commanders have acknowledged in recent months
 that such problems are taking a toll. Several recent studies have
 cited signs of lagging morale among air crews.
     The latest such study, by the Rand Corp. think tank, found that
 the stress level of Air Force pilots was too high. One contributing
 factor, the study said, was field exercises that many commanders
 said were not worthwhile or productive. A report on the study was
 published in The Washington Times.
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