Crashed Vietnamese plane not suited to bad weather
     HANOI (September 9, 1997 11:57 a.m. EDT) - The Vietnam Airlines
 Tupolev-134B that crashed in heavy rain near Phnom Penh last week,
 killing 64 people, is "not very suited to bad weather conditions,"
 an airline official was quoted as saying Tuesday.
     Vietnam Airlines general director Le Duc Tu told the official
 "Tuoi Tre" newspaper that the Russian-made Tupolev "is a plane of
 the old generation, which is not perfect and not very suited to bad
 weather conditions."
     He cautioned, however, "there has not been any conclusions from
 investigators so it is still impossible to know the real cause of
 the accident."
     The crash last Wednesday left only two survivors, a 4-year-old
 Vietnamese boy and a Thai infant.
     Preliminary reports indicated the plane had missed its approach
 and crashed while trying to pull up for another landing attempt in
 torrential rain, investigators in Cambodia said.
     The plane had been bound from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh,
 where weather conditions in general "are ideal for landings and
 takeoffs, contrary to other airports in the region," an airline
 spokesman said last week.
     "The Tupolev was in good shape," he said.
     Nevertheless, Vietnam Airlines has pulled its four remaining
 Tupolevs from service pending the outcome of the investigation,
 which is expected to be lengthy.
     The airline's insurance company said Tuesday it was preparing
 for negotiations with families of the victims and had already made
 advance compensation payments to some of them.
     The airline has been authorized to distribute $2,540 to families
 of Vietnamese victims and up to $10,000 to families of the non-Viet-
 namese who died, said the Bao Minh Insurance company official, who
 declined to be identified.
     A spokesman for the airline in Hong Kong said last week that
 victims' families would receive $150,000 in compensation each, but
 an insurance company official said final compensation will not be
 determined until the cause of the crash is known.
     He said Bao Minh has empowered the British law firm Beaumont and
 Sons to negotiate with families on a case-by-case basis, with pay-
 outs related to the victims' earning capabilities.
     Among the victims were 22 Taiwanese and 21 South Koreans with
 the rest from Australia, Britain, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam
 among other countries.
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             Afghan opposition pilots defect with jets
     ISLAMABAD (September 9, 1997 10:57 a.m. EDT) --- The pilots of
 three jet fighters in Afghanistan's northern opposition alliance
 defected on Tuesday and landed at two western airports controlled
 by the Taleban Islamic movement, a Pakistan-based Afghan news
 service said.
     The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said the jets flew from the
 opposition's northern base of Shibarghan and two of them landed
 at Herat and one at Shindand.
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