William Cohen orders 24-hour halt in training flights
     WASHINGTON (September 17, 1997 11:39 a.m. EDT) - Defense Secre-
 tary William Cohen on Wednesday ordered the four military services
 to review safety procedures in the wake of five recent air crashes.
     "The secretary has directed the services to conduct a safety
 review of training flights," said Defense Department spokesman
 Kenneth Bacon.
     "The secretary has made the decision to direct the secretaries
 of the services to stand-down all training flights for 24 hours to
 review safety procedures," said Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department
 spokesman.
     Bacon said the directive will not affect operational flights.
 Cohen's instructions were delivered in letters to the civilian lea-
 ders of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
     The move came after two F-16s carrying pilots training for night
 flying collided Tuesday off Atlantic City, N.J., forcing two men to
 parachute into the Atlantic Ocean and a third to nurse his crippled
 plane back to land. All three were safe Wednesday.
     The jets collided about 30 miles southeast of Atlantic City
 minutes after taking off from the National Guard base here, said
 Maj. Roger Pharo, an executive officer with the Air National Guard
 177th Fighter Wing at Atlantic City International Airport.
     One jet, an F-16 Falcon D-model with two pilots aboard, was
 overtaking the other, a single-seat C-model, when a pod-like missile
 carrier underneath the right wing of the D-model struck the left
 wing of the other plane.
     The missile carrier, which was unarmed, became embedded in the
 wing of the C-model.
     The crew of the D-model lost control because of damage to their
 right wing, and ejected as the craft fell to the sea, National Guard
 Lt. Col. John Dwyer said at a news conference today.
     The plane with the missile carrier stuck in its wing also had
 severe damage. "It's a credit to the pilot that he could bring it
 home," said Dwyer.
     The two pilots were found in life rafts about two miles apart,
 said Coast Guard Chief Thomas Peck.
     One suffered a bruised hip and gash on his head. "He's in good
 shape, with the exception of the cut and the bruise and being
 ejected out of an aircraft at a couple hundred miles per hour,"
 Peck said.
     All three pilots were treated at Atlantic City Medical Center
 and released Wednesday, a nursing supervisor said. Their names were
 not released.
     Officials would not speculate on the cause of the accident pend-
 ing an investigation. All three pilots were undergoing training for
 recertification to fly at night.
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              Air Force launches unarmed missile
     VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (September 17, 1997 07:57 a.m.
 EDT) -- An unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile was launched
 Wednesday, the Air Force said.
     The Peacekeeper missile, carrying seven unarmed re-entry ve-
 hicles, was launched at 1:01 a.m. and traveled about 4,200 miles
 in about 30 minutes, officials said.
     It hit a target at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the western
 chain of the Marshall Islands.
     The launch is part of a test and evaluation program designed to
 learn more about the missile's accuracy and reliability.
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    Five Iranian air force technicians gunned down in Pakistan
     RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (September 17, 1997 08:09 a.m. EDT) -- Gun-
 men on a motorcycle opened fire on a van in northern Pakistan, kill-
 ing five Iranian air force technicians, military officials said.
     A sixth person, whose identity was unclear, suffered minor
 injuries in the attack in Rawalpindi, outside the capital,
 Islamabad.
     The motive for the attack was not immediately clear.
     The technicians were traveling to a training course at a mili-
 tary air base when men carrying Kalishnikov rifles began firing,
 said Pakistani military officials speaking on condition of
 customary anonymity.
     A witness said he saw three men on a single motorcycle spray the
 van with gunfire, then turn around and flee.
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   Trial opens in London for Iraqis accused of hijacking aircraft
     LONDON (September 17, 1997 06:27 a.m. EDT) -- Six Iraqi men
 forced a Sudanese plane to fly to Britain last year by pretending
 that two bottles covered with black tape were explosive grenades,
 prosecutors said.
     British prosecutors presented the argument Tuesday on the first
 day of trial. The six are charged with hijacking a Sudan Airways
 A130 Airbus bound for Jordan on Aug. 16, 1996. A seventh man is
 charged with aiding them.
     "They were armed with two sauce bottles they had taken from a
 restaurant, filled with salt and bound with black tape to look like
 grenades," prosecutor David Calvert-Smith said.
     The suspects, who also had knives, terrorized 197 passengers
 and crew during the 20-hour ordeal, prosecutors said.
     The passengers and crew were released unharmed when the plane
 landed at Stansted airport northeast of London, and the suspected
 hijackers surrendered.
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