Black Florida fighter pilot said to be pick for AF chief
     TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- President Clinton will nominate Florida state
 Sen Daryl Janes, a fighter pilot, to be Secretary of the Air Force,
 Sen. Bob Graham said Monday.
     If confirmed by the Senate, Jones would be the first black Air
 Force secretary.
     Jones, 42, graduated from the Air Force Academy and served seven
 years in the Air Force, where he was an F-4 Phantom pilot. He is now
 a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve and flies F-16 Falcons.
     Current secretary, Sheila Widnall, the first woman to hold the
 job, announced two weeks ago that she would leave Oct. 31 to return
 to teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
 Knoxville News Sentinel 23 Sept 97
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     Sept. 22 _ Finding any connection among six recent military
 aircraft disasters remains as tenuous as linking together the
 deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa.
     That continues to be the consensus among both military and avi-
 ation experts who have reviewed the string of military air accidents
 that began Sept. 13 with an apparent air collision off the coast of
 Africa that left 33 still unaccounted for.
     "As far as we know now, all of the incidents are kind of unre-
 lated," said Air Force Lt. Joe DellaVedova, press officer for the
 Air Combat Command, which has its headquarters at Langley Air Force
 Base, Va.
     Nevertheless, the Air Combat Command held its worldwide "stand
 down" of fighter and bomber training flights on Monday instead of
 waiting until Friday as was previously scheduled. The command used
 the pause in flights to review safety standards and procedures.
     "Safety is always a priority and we want to magnify that," said
 DellaVedova.
     The command, which represents nearly half of all Air Force air-
 craft, ceased all nonessential air missions in response to the lat-
 est accident that occurred last Friday, when a B-1 bomber crashed
 in Montana, killing all four in the crew.
     Four of the six recent U.S. military crashes involved Air Force
 planes, while one Navy and one Marine Corps jet fighter also have
 crashed.
              Doubt Cast on Incidents Being Related
     Although the military has one of the best air safety records in
 history this year, this recent spurt of mishaps prompted Defense
 Secretary William Cohen to order a 24-hour grounding of air training
 exercises throughout the military during a weeklong period that
 lasts through Friday.
     But few aviation experts believe the recent rash of aircraft
 mishaps are related. Each occurred under very different circumstances
 with different planes, training and maintenance routines.
     "I don't see anything in common," says Jim Kuchar, an aeronautics
 specialist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies
 personnel-related matters. Others agree.
     "None can be accused of following a different drummer," says
 David Hughes, managing editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology,
 an industry publication that recently investigated several of the
 accidents. "The military has had a very good year on safety, but
 unfortunately there was this rash of random circumstances."
     Those circumstances appear to be completely unrelated, notes
 Hughes.
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