Jet veers off runway, disrupts Berlin airport
     BERLIN - November 6, 1997 8:35 p.m. EST - Passenger flights to
 Berlin were severely disrupted on Thursday after an Air France jet
 veered off the runway and into wet earth next to the tarmac.
     Authorities at Berlin's Tegel airport said none of the 56 pass-
 engers or five crew aboard the Boeing 737-500 was injured.
     The plane from Paris was not damaged in the incident at 3:10 a.m.
 EST, a spokeswoman for Air France said. She said the plane's brakes
 apparently malfunctioned after it touched down.
     After passengers safely disembarked, fuel was pumped out of the
 tanks to lighten the jet, which sank so far into the soft earth that
 its wheels were almost entirely buried. It was towed out of the
 grass at 8 a.m. EST.
     The incident forced authorities to close the city's busiest air-
 port for several hours, diverting at least 36 inbound flights to two
 less-used airports for five hours and grounding outbound flights for
 nearly two hours.
     Hundreds of travellers to Berlin encountered delays and long
 taxi journeys after landing at east Berlin's Schoenefeld airport
 or Tempelhof in central Berlin.
     "Some of the passengers were quite irritated," said an airport
 spokesman.
     A spokeswoman for Air France in Frankfurt said there was no
 truth to a report on Germany's N-TV all-news television network that
 the plane had suffered technical problems in the air and was forced
 to make an emergency landing.
     "That is complete nonsense," said Sandra Trautmann, spokesman
 for Air France in Frankfurt. "It was a normal landing and the plane
 had already slowed when the brakes apparently malfunctioned and the
 aircraft slipped off the runway."
     The exact cause is still under investigation, she said.
     The flight left Paris at 1:30 a.m. EST and landed in Berlin on
 schedule. Passengers disembarked almost immediately down airport
 stairways and were able to take their luggage.
     The airport began allowing planes to depart again around 5 a.m.
 EST. They were forced to take off with reduced fuel to bring down
 their weight on a runway shortened to about 2,000 yards from the
 normal 3,000 yards.
     A second runway at the airport has been closed due to
 construction work.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
          'Hold on!' cargo crew yells moments before crash
     MIAMI - November 6, 1997 10:35 p.m. EST - Crew members shouting
 "Hold on! Hold on!" frantically tried to stablilize a stalled cargo
 jet before a fatal crash in August, according to cockpit voice
 recordings released Thursday.
     The Fine Air DC-8 crashed in flames in an airport warehouse
 district seconds after takeoff, killing all four aboard and one
 motorist on the ground.
     National Transportation Safety Board investigative material re-
 leased with the recording indicated the focus continues to be on
 whether the plane's 45-ton cargo of denim may have shifted.
     Witnesses saw the plane rock from side to side, pitching upward
 before it crashed, according to the report.  One witness said the
 plane was at an 80-degree angle to the ground.
     "Easy, easy, easy," captain Dale Patrick Thompson is recorded as
 saying seconds after the plane took off on Aug. 7 en route to the
 Dominican Republic.
     One second later, first officer Steven Petrosky asked, "What's
 going on?"
     "Oh no, (expletive), no," Thompson said. "Hold on! Hold on!
 Keep it light, easy, (expletive)."
     The NTSB would not comment on specifics included in the material,
 saying a final report will be issued in mid-1998. Fine Air spokesman
 Tom Sokol also would not comment, saying he had not seen the report.
     Fine Air stopped flying between Sept. 4 and Oct. 27 when in-
 spections found problems with cargo handling. The airline paid $1.5
 million for the cost of Federal Aviation Administration inspections.
     Investigators found only two of the 50 to 55 cargo pallet locks
 aboard the doomed Fine Air flight were in closed positions, indicat-
 ing the load might have shifted during takeoff.
     The NTSB has said the aircraft was not overloaded but Thursday's
 report included information about 1,000 pounds of cargo being re-
 moved from the flight because of a late plane change.
     The material also included an interview with Shirley Ditter, a
 Fine Air pilot who had similar troubles with a takeoff less than a
 month before the crash.
     Ditter said on a flight to El Salvador on July 13 the plane
 needed some immediate adjustments of flight controls after a steep
 takeoff.
     "Ditter stated the center of gravity error was probably due to
 loading," according to the report.  Ditter added that his first
 officer complained to the airline about the problem: "What are you
 trying to do, kill us?"
 -----------------------
--- DB 1.39/004487
---------------