Air Force says Montana bomber crash was due to pilot error
     Ellsworth Air Force Base, SD - December 10, 1997 09:48 a.m. EST
 -- A pilot's attempt to perform an uncommon but permissible maneuver
 led to the September crash of a B-1B bomber that killed all four
 people aboard, the Air Force concluded.
     The pilot of the $200 million plane was making a sharp right
 turn during a Sept. 19 training mission on the Montana prairie when
 the plane neared stall speed and crashed, Col. Ned Schoeck said
 Tuesday. He said the technique is uncommon, but not forbidden.
     "It is not unusual for instructors to try every technique that
 is available," Schoeck said.
     The pilot tried in the last few seconds to roll the plane back
 to the left but was unable to do so because a computer on the plane
 would not allow it. Schoeck said the computer sensed that such a
 move would thrust the nose of the plane toward the ground or send
 it upward, stalling the craft.
     The plane would have crashed either way because of its low
 altitude, Schoeck said.
     Killed were Col. Anthony Beat of Attica, Ohio; vice commander
 of the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth; Maj. Clay Culver of Memphis,
 Tenn.; Maj. Kirk Cakerice of Eldora, Iowa; and Capt. Gary Everett
 of New York.
     Beat and Cakerice were B-1 pilots and instructors. The investi-
 gation could not determine which of the two was flying the plane
 when it crashed, Schoeck said.
     A separate Air Force investigation, which will not be made pub-
 lic, will be used to decide if any operational changes are needed
 as a result of the crash.
     The crash was the sixth military air disaster in a seven-day
 period, prompting a nationwide one-day grounding of military planes.
 However, at 1.37 crashes per 100,000 flying hours in the fiscal year
 ending Sept. 30, the Air Force had its fourth safest year ever.
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       Survivors stranded after Canada air crash that killed 4
     WINNIPEG, Manitoba - December 10, 1997 11:18 am - Six seriously
 injured survivors of a plane crash Tuesday that killed four people
 were stranded Wednesday in a remote northern Manitoba town by fog
 and freezing rain, authorities said.
     "We're hoping with daybreak, there'll be a possibility to land.
 Otherwise we'll air drop medical supplies," said Capt. Ian Stock,
 the Canadian Armed Forces Rescue Coordination Center spokesman.
     A Brazilian-made Embraer EMB-110 turboprop aircraft owned by
 Manitoba-based Sowind Air Ltd. crashed with 17 people aboard in
 freezing rain Tuesday half a mile from the airport in Little Grand
 Rapids, a community 186 miles northeast of Winnipeg.
     Three people including a doctor died at the crash scene. Two
 critically injured adults and a young boy were airlifted late Tues-
 day to Winnipeg's Health Sciences Center where the boy died, the
 Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
     "There's a half dozen more survivors of the crash at the Little
 Grand Rapids nursing station. They want to send them down to us as
 soon as the weather breaks," said Jim Rodger of Winnipeg's Health
 Sciences Center.
     "The injured people in Little Grand Rapids are not as badly
 injured as the people who were brought here last night," Rodger
 added.
     "Several planes have tried to land to help us, but they've been
 unable to, so we have to wait until the weather clears," said Cpl.
 Bruce Stemken of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
     A Hercules aircraft left Winnipeg on Wednesday morning, and two
 helicopters were set to join the rescue attempt later in the day.
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            155 rescued as Russians foil hijacking
     MOSCOW - December 10, 1997 09:06 a.m. EST -- Security forces
 stormed an airplane at Moscow's airport Wednesday and captured a
 hijacker who had taken 155 people hostage.
     Everybody on board the Ilyushin-62 airliner was released un-
 harmed, airport police said.
     The plane, belonging to an obscure airline called Magma, was
 commandeered by a 59-year-old man en route to Moscow from Magadan,
 eight time zones away in eastern Russia. Authorities said the hi-
 jacker, who was demanding $10 million and safe passage to Switzer-
 land, claimed to have explosives strapped to his body.
      Less than an hour after the plane landed in Moscow, Alpha
 command forces rushed on board and grabbed the hijacker. Security
 officials said Gennady Todikov appeared to be mentally unstable and
 was rambling about politics and a flight to Switzerland.
      At least 43 of the 142 passengers and 13 crew members were
 released soon after the plane landed at 11:30 a.m. That left more
 than 100 hostages aboard the airliner, which was towed to a far
 corner of the airport.
      After negotiations with officials from Russia's Federal Secur-
 ity Service (FSB), heavily armed troops, many of them in camouflage
 outfits, stormed the plane and captured the man.
     In addition to $10 million, the hijacker had demanded guaranteed
 passage to Switzerland, officials said.
     Security officers reportedly spoke to the hijacker by radio at
 Sheremetyevo-1, adjacent to Moscow's main international airport,
 Sheremetyevo-2.
     President Boris Yeltsin was talking with security officials
 about what measures should be taken, his spokesman Sergei Yastr-
 zhembsky said. Later in the day, the Interfax news agency reported
 Yeltsin was hospitalized.
     The plane hijacking was the first in Russia in more than two
 years, though it came just four days after an air disaster -- a
 cargo plane crash that killed at least 67 people in Irkutsk,
 Siberia. ===
--- DB 1.39/004487
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