Air Force Says Pilot Error
     The Air Force says pilot error was to blame for a crash in
 May that killed a female pilot. An Air Force report says Capt. Amy
 Svoboda didn't realize she was flying upside down during a night
 training mission and mistakenly pulled up on the controls, causing
 her A-10 attack jet to nose dive into the Arizona desert. Svoboda,
 29-year-old Air Force Academy graduate, was the first female Air
 Force pilot to die in a flying accident.
                    Air Force is Not Amused
     The Air Force wants everyone to know that a little bit of rain
 does not wash away the stealth capacity of the B-2 bomber. The Air
 Force flew a planeload of reporters from Washington to Whiteman Air
 Force Base in Missouri today for a close look at the once top-secret
 plane. A recent congressional report suggested the world's most ex-
 pensive plane -- at $2.1 billion a copy -- is vulnerable to rain.
 The sleek black planes, shaped like an angular boomerang, are de-
 signed to evade radar detection and carry out nuclear and conven-
 tional heavy bombing missions.
                   Students Killed in Plane Crash
     Authorities say a twin-engine plane used by Purdue University
 students for flying lessons crashed today, killing an instructor and
 two students on board. According to witnesses, the university-owned
 BE-76 Beechcraft Duchess plane veered to the right after taking off,
 crashed into a field and caught fire. It was the first fatality in
 the 42 years of flight training for students at Purdue's School of
 Aviation Technology.  The cause of the crash is not known and the
 National Transportation Board is investigating.
 17:50 09-12-97
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   Tamil rebels shoot down armed chopper
     COLOMBO (September 12, 1997 08:51 a.m. EDT) - Tamil Tiger guer-
 rillas on Friday shot down a helicopter gunship in northern Sri
 Lanka after the rebels claimed to have killed 40 soldiers who were
 trying to bypass the rebel-held town of Puliyankulam and move in to
 guerrilla territory through a different route on Thursday.
     The Russian-built Mi-24 armor-plated aircraft was operating near
 Puliyankulam where the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
 (LTTE) are resisting a major military offensive, officials said.
     Defense sources said the pilots crash-landed the helicopter
 after its tail rotor was hit by heavy machine gunfire. The four
 people aboard were not seriously injured.
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           Oregon senator blocking general's nomination
     WASHINGTON (September 12, 1997 09:33 a.m. EDT) Democratic Sen.
 Ron Wyden of Oregon said Thursday he was temporarily blocking the
 confirmation vote for Gen. Henry H. Shelton as the new chairman of
 the Joint Chiefs of Staff until he got a better explanation for a
 crash last year that killed 10 Oregon-based reservists.
     The Air Force has said fuel starvation caused the C-130 to lose
 power in all four engines and plunge into the waters off the Cali-
 fornia coast Nov. 22, 1996, killing 10 of the 11 reservists on
 board.
     However, the independent National Transportation Safety Board
 said that information it received on the crash failed to support
 the Air Force's official explanation of the crash. The NTSB also
 said it did not have enough data to decide whether the military
 conducted a thorough investigation.
     "I just felt that further delay was unacceptable. This has gone
 on for months and months," Wyden said. "My sense is that the Air
 Force doesn't really know what is causing these problems with the
 C-130. The families deserve to have some answers to their
 questions."
     Over the last 11 years, 57 C-130 planes have reported engine
 failure or severe power losses.
     A Pentagon spokesman for the Joint Chiefs had no immediate com-
 ment on the congressional maneuvering.  But Wyden, a first-term
 Democrat, said he met with Shelton at lunch Thursday, and the
 general promised to look into the problem.
     Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said a discussion late Thursday with
 senior Republicans and Air Force officials indicated the military
 might be willing to re-examine the cause of the crash with NTSB
 help.
     Wyden and Smith, along with family members, have pressed the Air
 Force to open their confidential safety investigation to NTSB inves-
 tigators. If the Air Force included NTSB officials in another formal
 review of the crash, Smith said that likely would result in
 Shelton's confirmation vote moving forward soon.
     An Air Force spokeswoman said the service stood by its
 investigation.
     "The investigation is complete," said Keri Humphrey. "They have
 requested the privileged information in the report and legally we
 can't provide that and we have informed Senator Wyden of that."
     The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 11-0 on Wednesday to
 endorse the nomination of Shelton, a four-star Army general and
 current chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command.
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