U.S. military cargo plane may have collided with German aircraft
     * Mayday signal detected where German, U.S. planes sought
     WINDHOEK, Namibia (September 14, 1997 7:39 p.m. EDT) -- U.S. and
 German military planes with 33 people on board were reported missing
 off the coast of southern Africa on Sunday, and there were
 indications they had collided and crashed into the Atlantic.
     The South African air force said a signal received from a life
 jacket emergency beacon was evidence there might be survivors.
     German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe said the German plane, a
 Soviet-made model inherited from the former East German army, was
 last heard from at 4 p.m. Saturday German time (10 a.m. EDT). He
 said it apparently crashed into the Atlantic off the coast of
 Angola.
     The German Defense Ministry later said a U.S. military C-141
 cargo plane with nine crew members was missing in the same area and
 presumed crashed.
     "We have no information that they collided," a ministry spokes-
 man in Bonn said on condition of anonymity. "But we have information
 that they went missing at the same time and in the same area. When
 you add one and one together ... a crash is very probable."
     The exact location of the apparent crash was not immediately
 known.
     A South African air force spokeswoman said a flash picked up by
 satellite and reported by officials Saturday night at Johannesburg
 airport indicated a possible midair collision.
     The spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Laverne Machine, said a cargo plane
 was in the same airspace at the same time as the missing German
 plane, but declined to comment further other than to say that both
 the German and U.S. governments had asked South Africa for
 assistance.
     A spokeswoman for Air Mobility Command, headquartered at Scott
 Air Force Base in Illinois, said a U.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifter
 cargo plane en route from Namibia, in southern Africa, to Ascension
 Island in the south Atlantic was overdue, "and we are presuming it
 went down in the Atlantic Ocean."
     "We don't have confirmation of that right now, but we are
 assuming that," Sgt. Ellen Schirmer said.
     She said officials also were investigating any connection with
 the German plane, which she noted went missing "about the same time
 and about the same place that we lost contact" with the C-141.
     The C-141, assigned to the 305th Air Mobility wing at McGuire
 Air Force Base in New Jersey, had just flown cargo from Ascension
 Island, a British territory, to Namibia and was returning to the
 island Saturday, Schirmer said.
     The names of the crew members were not released. They "come from
 Rhode Island to California so it is difficult to notify their fami-
 lies," Schirmer said.
     The plane left Namibia at 4:11 p.m. Saturday local time and was
 due at 7:51 p.m. Rescue efforts were being coordinated through the
 Atlantic Command out of Norfolk, Va., Schirmer said.
     The Soviet-made German air force plane was en route from Germany
 to Cape Town, South Africa, where soldiers were to have participated
 in a boat race marking the 75th anniversary of the South African
 navy.
     "There is no hope, but we will do everything to find out what
 happened," Ruehe said.
     No distress call was received by ships or other planes in the
 area or by satellite, he added.
     Presumed killed were 12 German marines, two of their spouses,
 and 10 crew members.
     Two German maritime patrol aircraft and a coordination team were
 dispatched to the area late Sunday to begin looking for wreckage,
 Ruehe said.
     South Africa and France were sending planes as well, and Ruehe
 said Britain and the United States also had been asked to help.
     The Soviet-made Tupolev model from the former East German army
 was taken over by the Luftwaffe during German reunification in
 1990.
     It was built in 1989 and was last inspected only a month ago,
 Ruehe said.
     It usually is used for missions related to verifying "open
 skies" arms control treaties, as well as transporting politicians,
 although none were aboard this flight.
     The crew's last direct contact with the ground was with con-
 trollers in Accra, Ghana, before the plane headed out over the
 Atlantic. An indirect communication was received when it was 930
 miles off the coast of Angola.
     It was declared missing after it failed to arrive for a refuel-
 ing stop in Windhoek, Namibia, and officials determined it had not
 landed at any other airport.
     The last reported Tupolev crash was in August 1996, when a
 Russian plane carrying miners went down, killing at least 140
 people.
--- DB 1.39/004487
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