Small airplanes collide in air in Montana
     BOZEMAN, Mont. -- December 7, 1997 8:11 p.m. EST -- Two small
 airplanes collided in the air about 10 miles north of Bozeman Sunday
 afternoon, killing three people.
     The Federal Aviation Administration's Seattle office confirmed
 the deaths but said the identities of the victims -- two pilots and
 a passenger -- weren't immediately available.
     Witnesses said skies were clear with no restrictions on
 visibility.
     Joel Johnson was at a nearby residence with a sheriff's deputy
 and a tow vehicle and said one aircraft hit the ground "like a
 backward rocket," at about a 45-degree angle.
     The other was missing a wing and just floated to the ground,
 scattering debris as Johnson and the deputy took cover behind the
 patrol car, he said.
     A witness who went to the scene shortly after the 3 p.m. colli-
 sion said wreckage was scattered over at least a half mile.
     The FAA said an inspector was dispatched from Helena, about 100
 miles from the scene.
     The FAA said the two aircraft were not being tracked on radar
 and not otherwise in contact with officials at a local airport or
 any other regional airport, suggesting they were on recreational
 flight.
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 By Nikolai Pavlov - Reuters
     IRKUTSK, Russia Dec. 7 - Rescue workers toiled through a second
 Siberian night to clear the charred wreckage of a huge military
 cargo plane that plunged into an apartment building, killing scores
 of people.
     Officials working in temperatures as low as minus 13 Fahrenheit
 said there was virtually no hope of finding any more survivors from
 Saturday's crash on the outskirts of the Siberian city of Irkutsk.
     An Emergencies Ministry spokesman told Reuters that 42 bodies
 had been found by 10 PM Moscow time on Sunday.
     Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu told reporters at the scene
 earlier that the final death toll could reach 62 as some people were
 still missing. "The worst prognosis is that 62 people are dead. This
 is a preliminary figure," he said.
     The cause of the crash, which set fire to several buildings
 including an orphanage where two children were killed, was not im-
 ediately known.
     But Interfax news agency quoted sources in Irkutsk, about 5,000
 km (3,000 miles) east of Moscow, as saying the crew reported that
 two engines failed just before the Antonov-124 aircraft crashed
 shortly after takeoff.
     NTV commercial television said another theory was that the
 plane's cargo -- two Sukhoi fighter jets bound for export to Viet-
 nam -- had not been properly loaded.
     Russia's Defence Ministry said it had suspended all An-124
 flights until the cause of the crash was known. Military prosecutors
 have launched a criminal investigation.
     The Antonov-124, one of the world's largest aircraft, is nearly
 70 metres long, has a wingspan of more than 73 metres and has a
 maximum load capacity of 120 tonnes.
     The plane crashed into an apartment building housing 106 people
 and just missed an orphanage whose deputy director, Liana Letarnikova,
 said two children were killed and five were injured in the ensuing
 fires.
     Russian television showed pictures of several badly burned
 children and said many others were still in a state of shock.
     "It is such a terrible tragedy," one tearful middle-aged woman
 said. "I don't see how anybody in the apartment block could possibly
 have survived."
     Local officials said the death toll could have been far higher
 if the town's gas supply had not been coincidentally cut off shortly
 before the crash.
     Russian news agencies said local people had started raising
 money and collecting clothes and other essential items for the home- less 
victims of the disaster.
     Most of the aircraft's vast fuselage appeared to have disinte-
 grated or burned after the crash but the white tailplane, decorated
 with a red star, was stuck awkwardly in the side and roof of the
 four-storey apartment building.
     The building itself was covered with ice after fire-fighters
 poured water over it for hours to put out the fires which broke out
 after the crash. The plane had been carrying 110 tonnes of aviation
 fuel.
     The crash disaster was the fifth accident involving the An-124
 since 1992. An An-124 freighter crashed near Turin, Italy, last year,
 killing two crew members and two Italian villagers.
 Reut 19:22 12-07-97
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