Philippine pilot received warnings before fatal crash
     MANILA - Feb 22, 1998 10:42 a.m. EST - The cockpit voice record-
 er of a Philippine DC-9 that crashed this month killing 104 people
 indicated the pilot received warnings before he slammed into a
 mountain, an official said on Sunday.
     The warnings of "terrain, terrain" came from the computer-gener-
 ated voice of the plane's Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS), a
 radar-linked device automatically activated when the plane gets
 dangerously close to the ground or to a natural obstruction, said
 the official, asking not to be identified.
     The computerized voice from the GPWS repeatedly warned the pilot
 as he was descending on the Cagayan de Oro airport in the southern
 Philippines.
     "I don't see anything," said a male voice, presumably that of
 one of the plane's two pilots, according to the official.
     The official said the warning was made about a dozen times to
 the pilot based on the transcripts of recordings made by the cockpit
 voice recorder.
     The last message heard from the male voice was "Levelling at
 5,000 feet, sir," said the official.
     The sounds of the computerized voice from the GPWS and the male
 voice were heard on the cockpit voice recorder which had been
 analyzed by American experts, said the official.
     The Cebu Pacific Airways plane was on a domestic flight when it
 struck a cloud-covered mountain after radioing ground control that
 it was descending.
     Air transport officials have not established the cause of the
 worst air disaster in Philippine history but said they were looking
 at either mechanical defect, pilot error or bad weather.
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       Deployments rise in preparation for war - By Julie Bird
    Dozens more Air Force bombers, fighters, tankers, helicopters and
 special-operations aircraft took off for the Persian Gulf region the
 week of Feb. 9 as the United States readied for a major air campaign
 against Iraq.
     The preparations for war were felt not only at bases called on
 to deploy more aircraft and personnel to the gulf, but around the
 world as military leaders scrambled to fill gaps left as forces were
 shifted to the region.
     U.S. officials insisted that they still hope the massive show of
 air power - the biggest for the Air Force since the 1991 Persian Gulf
 War - would persuade Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to cooperate with
 U.N. weapons inspectors by allowing them full access to suspected
 weapons sites.
   The U.S. and British navies also have moved more aircraft carriers
 to the gulf, in part because Saudi Arabia - where most Air Force jets
 are based - will not allow airstrikes to be launched from its bases.
     The pace of deployments is reminiscent of the buildup of forces
 before the gulf war. Once again, families at bases across the country
 are sending their loved ones into what could become another war.
     The United States has about 25,000 troops in the gulf region,
 including about 7,500 airmen, Pentagon officials said. At least 500
 more were deploying with the latest batch of nearly 50 combat air-
 craft, Air Force officials estimated.
     The Pentagon would not say exactly where the aircraft and airmen
 were going. But it appeared that bomb-dropping aircraft went to
 Kuwait and Bahrain, the only gulf states that have said they would
 allow offensive operations.
                          Already in the region
   Many bases sending fresh troops and aircraft to the region already
 have hundreds of other airmen deployed there.  For example, before
 two search-and-rescue tankers and 80 people deployed Feb. 11 from
 Moody Air Force Base, Ga., the base had more than 600 already in the
 theater, including more than 500 with the air-expeditionary wing in
 Bahrain.
     Smaller unit deployments too numerous to count also were under
 way. For example, 40 members of the 305th Security Forces and part
 of the 621st Air Mobility Operations Group headed to the gulf from
 McGuire Air Force Base, N.J.
    In all, the Air Mobility Command had nearly 1,000 people deployed
 to the region, command officials said.
     For the command, the task of getting people and equipment in
 place was dubbed Phoenix Scorpion II. The first part of that occurred
 in November during the first standoff with Iraq over weapons
 inspectors.
     As of early Feb. 12, the mobility command had carried 2,830 pas-
 sengers and more than 2,700 tons as part of the operation. Its
 tankers had unloaded close to 5 million pounds of fuel.
     Tanker airlift-control elements, which lay down support for air-
 lift and refueling operations, had been set up in Bahrain, Kuwait
 City, Rota and Moron air bases in Spain and Thumrait, Oman, said
 Capt. Bill Barksdale, a command spokesman.
     In Germany, the U.S. Air Forces in Europe readied Rhein-Main Air
 Base to handle the increased flow of aircraft, cargo and passengers
 into Southwest Asia. About 100 airmen, most from the 86th Airlift
 Wing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, arrived Feb. 10 to bring the
 base up to full operating capacity.
     Deployed personnel include security forces; logisticians; main-
 tenance people; and services, communications and medical
 specialists.
    The deployments caused ripple effects elsewhere. The commander of
 U.S. forces in South Korea, concerned about the loss of an aircraft
 carrier moved as part of the gulf buildup, asked that fighters be
 moved forward to cover the gap.
    In response, the 90th Fighter Squadron and its F-15E "Strike
 Eagles" from Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, deployed to Korea
 on Feb. 10.
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