Flying Europe -- British Air may launch low-cost carrier
    AMMAN, Jordan - November 4, 1997 10:58 a.m. EST - British Airways
 aims to decide before the end of this year whether to move into the
 European low-cost airline market, a senior industry source told
 Reuters on Tuesday.
    "It (a decision) will be in the next month or so," he said.
    The world's biggest international airline has been looking at the
 idea of creating a new low-cost carrier or investing in an existing
 operator to get into the market for cut-price travel being developed]
 by carriers like Ryanair, easyJet, Debonair and Virgin Express fol-
 lowing deregulation ofthe European market.
    "We are facing new competition from carriers like easyJet and we
 have to decide whether to create a new carrier or buy an existing
 one," said the source.
 He said if BA decided to go ahead any BA low-cost venture would be
 operated as a stand-alone business under a separate brand from the
 main airline.
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                   U-2s return to safely to base
     BAGHDAD -- Nov. 4, 1997 8:05 p.m. EST - American U-2 spy planes
 completed routine flights over Iraqi territory Tuesday without any
 incident, a United Nations source in Baghdad said.
     "The flight by U-2 planes was a routine one and it ended with
 no incident," the source told Reuters.
     Iraq Monday asked the U.N. Special Commission in charge of dis-
 mantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction under terms of the 1991
 Gulf War cease-fire to stop using American U-2 spy planes for sur-
 veillance over its territory.
     Iraq's U.N. Ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon, told UNSCOM's chairman
 Richard Butler that Iraq's anti-aircraft artillery was ready every-
 where and the planes could be shot down.
     U-2 planes, based in Saudi Arabia, have for years provided in-
 formation to U.N. teams seeking to find and neutralize Iraq's
 weapons of mass destruction.
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      Iraqi threat to shoot down U-2s is credible, experts say
     DUBAI -- Nov. 4, 1997 8:05 p.m. EST -- American U-2 spy planes,
 flying under threat from Baghdad of being shot down, are at risk
 from three types of Iraqi surface-to-air missiles, Western defense
 experts said on Tuesday.
     Two of the secretive high-flying aircraft in United Nations
 livery -- a blue flag and the letters "U.N." picked out in white
 on the sleek black fuselage -- usually fly two missions every week
 from a base near Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast, said Western defense
 experts who asked not to be named.
     Although far from the Iraqi border, this allows the slow-flying
 aircraft to reach their 60,000-70,000 feet operating height well
 before they enter Iraqi air space.
    Even at that high altitude, Iraq's arsenal includes three missile
 weapons that pose a threat to the slow - 460 miles per hour -- U-2s,
 the experts said.
    "It is a threat. No doubt those flying the aircraft and routing
 them and planning the missions will take account of that threat and
 route them accordingly," one expert said.
     "There are ways of minimising the threat but not eliminating it
 altogether."
     "During the (Gulf) war, Iraq's air defense system was pretty
 extensively damaged," another defense expert said. "However, they
 quickly recovered and it was one of the first things that got going
 again.
   "They have got missiles, albeit fairly old ones, which are capable
 of reaching the heights the U-2 operates at."
    The surface-to-air missiles are the SA-2 which can reach 98,000
 feet, the SA-3 which reaches 65,000 feet and the more modern SA-6
 which reaches 79,000 feet.
     The single-engine U-2, with a pencil-shaped fuselage and wing-
 span of more than 90 feet, carries only one crew member in a full-
 pressure suit who can trigger detailed photographs of objects below.
     American U-2 pilots have collected intelligence over Iraq since
 the 1991 Gulf War under a U.N. Security Council resolution passed
 in August of that year in response to Iraqi violations of ceasefire
 terms.
     They provide information to U.N. teams seeking to find and neu-
 tralise Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
     Baghdad says the U-2s are serving U.S. intelligence. It first
 threatened to shoot them down last Wednesday when it announced a ban
 on Americans serving with U.N. inspection teams and gave them a week
 to leave the country. The threat was renewed on Monday.
    Most famous of all the pilots who have flown the U-2 since it was
 introduced by Lockheed in 1955 was Francis Gary Powers, who was shot
 down by the Soviet Union in 1960.
    His plane was one of 10 brought down by the Soviet Union during
 the Cold War. Powers was arrested but later released.
    In October 1962, a U-2 snapped the first pictures of a Soviet
 military buildup and nuclear weapons in Cuba.
   The defense experts said the U-2 would be escorted by a protection
 force of up to 50 aircraft including airborne warning and communica-
 tions systems, specialist electronic warfare aircraft to confuse
 Iraqi radar, aircraft carrying high speed anti-radiation missiles,
 fighters, and search and rescue planes.
   These escorts would be flown from bases in Saudi Arabia and possi-
 bly off the U.S. aircraft carrier Nimitz which arrived in the Gulf
 last month.
   "The Iraqis have in the past tried to shoot down or harass aircraft
 flying in the no-fly zone and they've got a bloody nose for their
 troubles," one Western expert said.
    Former U.N. arms inspector Terence Taylor, whose last mission to
 Iraq was in April, said the U-2s fly specific missions on request
 from the United Nations Special Commission.
    "They can fly from very long range and stay aloft for quite a
 long time. There isn't a regular pattern," he told Reuters.
     "They are very important in supporting the work of the Special
 Commission. I have used their work myself and it is something I am
 sure the Iraqis would prefer did not happen."
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