New Zealand chopper rescues fishermen stranded on Pacific reef
     WELLINGTON (September 18, 1997 02:45 a.m. EDT) - A New Zealand
 navy helicopter on Thursday rescued two fishermen stranded for two
 nights on a remote Pacific coral reef. They were uninjured except
 for some coral cuts to their feet.
     Commander Paul Gilkison, speaking from the frigate Canterbury,
 told national media a helicopter from his ship had winched the pair,
 an American and a Briton, off Beveridge Reef, south of Niue.
     He said the men were lucky to be alive.
     "I think it was very, very dangerous... Being swept on to a reef
 at any time is bad news but in the middle of the night in a storm I
 would think it had been quite frightening," he told Radio New
 Zealand.
     Rescue coordinators in New Zealand said the game fishing boat
 hit the reef on Tuesday and the men, who declined to talk to report-
 ers, spent two nights sheltering on the coral perched above a shark-
 infested lagoon.
     Earlier efforts by nearby freight ships to rescue them failed
 and their rubber dinghy sprung a leak as they attempted to get off
 the reef themselves.
     Gilkison said Canterbury had raced overnight from Tonga, 420
 miles away, powering into heavy seas at 26 knots to reach the reef
 just before noon on Thursday.
     The frigate was due to arrive in Apia, Samoa, on Saturday.
 --------------------------------------------------------------
     PROKOSKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Sept. 17) - A U.N. helicopter
 slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain in central Bosnia and burst
 into flames Wednesday, killing a top international envoy, five
 Americans and six others in the worst accident to hit the peace-
 keeping effort in Bosnia.
     Those killed included German envoy Gerd Wagner, a deputy to top
 peace mediator Carlos Westendorp, and British diplomat Charles
 Morpeth. The others who died were not named pending notification of
 next of kin.
      Four Ukrainian crew members of the U.N. helicopter - an Mi-8
 leased from Ukraine - survived the crash, two of them with light
 injuries, German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said
     The crew managed to escape through the shattered glass nose of
 the craft but was hindered from helping passengers because of fire
 and thick smoke.
     Wagner and his delegation, which included members from Westen-
 dorp's office as well as U.N. employees believed to be police
 monitors, left Sarajevo for Bugojno ( pronounced BOO-goy-no) this
 morning, said Alexander Ivanko, a U.N. spokesman in Sarajevo.
      According to one Ukranian crew member, the weather was fine
 when they left Sarajevo, but they encountered "dense fog" west of
 Fojnica, 20 miles east of Bugojno, said U.N. spokesman Liam McDowall.
 When the pilot attempted to gain altitude, the helicopter crashed
 into the mountain and burst into flames, McDowall said.
     Foul play is not suspected in the crash but an investigation was
 underway. 09-17-97 1749EDT
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                        (AGAIN! JIM)
     TWA 800 crash inquiry rules out missile theory, report says
     WASHINGTON (September 18, 1997 01:33 a.m. EDT) --- The FBI and
 National Transportation Safety Board have almost ruled out a theory
 that the explosion of Trans World Airways Flight 800 was caused by
 a missile, the "Washington Post" reported on Thursday.
     The newspaper, citing detailed letters to members of Congress
 from the FBI and the safety board, said the FBI has found no evidence
 that a missile exploded near the Boeing 747 and sent a fragment into
 its center fuel tank.
     Extensive tests in which various missile warheads were exploded
 near an aircraft fuselage produced damage patterns "significantly
 different" from those found in the wreckage of the plan, the NTSB
 wrote in its letter to lawmakers.
     Investigators have been moving closer to blaming the explosion -
 - which destroyed the Paris-bound jet on July 17, 1996, killing all
 230 people aboard -- on mechanical factors, although they have
 stopped short of ruling out a missile hit.
     In the letter to lawmakers, the FBI said no theory has been
 definitively ruled for what caused fuel fumes and air in the fuel
 tank to ignite, but even the latest tests revealed no evidence of
 a bomb or a missile, the Post reported.
     The FBI letter said federal investigators and the CIA were within
 30 to 45 days of completing a sophisticated analysis of 200 witness
 accounts of the explosion. Both letters noted the poor visibility
 conditions present the night of the crash.
 -----------------------------------------
     Windhoek, Namibia, Sept 17 _Namibia said Wednesday it was not
 to blame for the suspected collision between U.S. and German mili-
 tary aircraft off its coast in which it is feared 33 people died.
     Namibian Transport Minister Hampie Plichta told a news confer-
 ence:"Information available to the Namibian Civil Aviation Author-
 ities is that no ATC (air traffic control) flight plan or departure
 signal was received by the Air Traffic Service Unit at the Windhoek
 International airport on the German Air Force aircraft.
     "Neither was there any radio communication from the aircraft
 with the Air Traffic Control Centre at Windhoek, nor were any re-
 ports on the flight of the aircraft received in Windhoek from any
 ATC authority along the flight path of the aircraft."
     German television said it was in possession of a letter and
 flight plan to Namibia's foreign ministry requesting permission
 to fly into Namibian airspace and refuel in Windhoek.
     "What we did receive about four weeks prior to the incident was
 a letter from foreign affairs requesting clearance," chief Namibian
 air traffic controller Jochen Sell told reporters.
     He said the clearance request had been accompanied by a state-
 ment containing the call sign, type of aircraft, number of crew,
 the point of entry and the landing time.
     "We never received the flight plan on the German air force
 aircraft," he insisted, adding that this would have contained more
 detailed information about the departure, exact route, flight levels
 and take-off times.
     Sell said Namibian air traffic control had also not received
 flight plans for the seven German aircraft which flew into Namibia
 this week to assist in the search and rescue mission.
     He said the German pilot of the ill-fated Tupolev had not made
 regular position reports, as was internationally required, and had
 not reported in upon entering the Namibian flight information
 region.
--- DB 1.39/004487
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