Three skydivers plunge to death over South Pole
     LONDON -- December 7, 1997 11:47 a.m. EST -- Three experienced
 skydivers on an adventure tour plunged to their deaths at the South
 Pole when their parachutes failed to open, officials said on Sunday.
     A spokesman for Canadian firm Adventure Network International,
 which organized the trip, said the dead parachutists were among a
 six-man team which had jumped at around 8,500 feet (2,600 meters)
 over the South Pole on Saturday.
     "Three landed without problems but unfortunately two of the
 parachutes appear not to have deployed at all and one hardly deploy-
 ed. It's a very sad situation," Michael McDowell said by telephone.
     The tragedy only became clear when the small plane which had
 dropped the parachutists landed to pick them up. When just three of
 the jumpers appeared, U.S. servicemen from a nearby base joined the
 hunt.
     "They went out in snowmobiles and found the first body very
 quickly. The other two were close by," he said.
     Two of the dead were U.S. citizens, aged 36 and 43, while the
 third was a 49-year-old Austrian. Each had paid $22,000 to take
 part.
     "I am mystified. These were extremely experienced skydivers who
 had each jumped hundreds of times. We don't have any clue as to what
 happened," McDowell said.
     "They all brought their own parachutes which they packed them-
 selves," he added, saying possible causes included equipment\
 failure, an error of judgement or weather conditions.
     Two of the dead men were co-ordinators for the jump and had
 briefed the others beforehand. All were wearing protective clothing
 against the cold, although the drop would only have lasted between
 90 and 120 seconds.
     "There are always risks involved with parachuting and you can
 never cancel them all out," McDowell said. The bodies are now at the
 firm's South Pole base and are due to be flown to Chile on Monday
     Dozens of people have jumped at the North Pole but few try at
 the South Pole, mainly because of the expense and logistical diffi-
 culties. McDowell said he believed two of the three dead men had
 also jumped at the North Pole.
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        Winds delay balloonist's second round-the-world attempt
     WASHINGTON - December 7, 1997 10:29 a.m. EST - A second attempt
 by hot air balloonist Steve Fossett to fly solo around the world has
 been postponed because of contrary winds, officials at Washington
 University in St. Louis, Missouri, said Sunday.
     Fossett, 53, who holds the record for the longest balloon flight,
 was to leave late Sunday in his "Solo Spirit" out of Busch Stadium
 in Saint Louis.
     "It has been postponed at least for one week. Steve Fossett and
 his team are waiting for a totally different winds pattern," said
 Susan Killenberg of the expedition's mission control center.
     Fossett stayed aloft in "Solo Spirit" for six days, two hours
 and 44 minutes on a trip from Saint Louis to Sultanpur, India, where
 he landed in January.
     Although he set a new record for hot air balloon travel, he
 failed to complete the around-the-world flight he had planned.
     Students and scientists at Washington University will monitor
 Fossett's second attempt, receiving geographical and meteorological
 data for the flight on electronic mail via satellite.
     Fossett hopes to complete the epic voyage in 15 days. He will
 first cross the Atlantic Ocean, then fly over Europe and Asia before
 crossing the Pacific Ocean and returning to North America.
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                 TWA and Boeing at center of hearings
     WASHINGTON - December 6, 1997 6:53 p.m. EST - Weeklong hearings
 into what caused TWA Flight 800 to crash into the Atlantic Ocean off
 New York City in July 1996 are expected to focus on the airline and
 aircraft maker Boeing when they begin Monday.
     With the FBI ruling terrorists did not cause the crash, the Na-
 tional Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is due to conduct five
 days of public hearings in Baltimore, Maryland quizzing technical
 experts on the causes of the crash while victims' families look on.
     While the Federal Bureau of Investigation only three weeks ago
 officially ruled out the theory that a bomb or missile brought the
 plane down, the NTSB has focused on mechanical failure for almost
 a year.
     Consensus among experts is that the explosion of the airplane's
 central fuel tank -- which was half empty at the time of the crash -
 - brought the 747 down. But investigators must now determine what
 caused the blast.
     NTSB officials say possible causes include a short circuit in an
 electric pump or gauge that could have ignited the kerosene vapors
 in an overheated fuel tank.
     Boeing has categorically rejected that theory, repeatedly deny-
 ing that there was any sign of such a defect on Flight 800, nor on
 any other Boeing 747s, in service for 25 years.
     The NTSB has long asked the FAA to take steps to prevent future
 central fuel tank explosions, but the FAA -- which rushed to inspect
 Boeing 747s in the aftermath of the tragedy -- has not hurried to
 apply the measures.
     The FAA waited until late November to issue two directives re-
 quiring better insulation for electric wiring in central fuel tank
 gauges and an immediate inspection of wiring in fuel pumps on older
 747s.
      And the agency, under increasingly heavy fire from the NTSB,
 only Wednesday said that some preventive measures could be taken.
     "Improvements can be made that will greatly reduce, if not
 eliminate, the possibility of fuel-tank explosions," the FAA said
 in a letter to the NTSB.
     But before making a decision, the FAA has asked a commission to
 study the proposed measures. A finding is not expected until
 mid-1998.
     As experts debate the possible causes of the crash, the assoc-
 iation of victims' families has called for criminal charges against
 Boeing, TWA and Federal Aviation Adminstration (FAA) officials, who
 it says cut safety corners in building and maintenance of airplanes
 to save money.
     And the group said it expects little from the hearings.
     "We hope to have access to technical documents in investigators'
 hands," Jose Cremades, president of the "Victims of Flight 800" sup-
 port group, told AFP by telephone. "But there is little chance that
 Boeing will be clearly implicated."
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