President's plane disappears from radar for 24 seconds
     NEW YORK - March 11, 1998 01:01 a.m. EST -- The Federal Aviation
 Administration is probing a report that a long-range radar system
 monitoring air traffic over the region went down for several seconds
 Tuesday.
     The FAA statement followed a broadcast report alleging that Air
 Force One disappeared from radar screens for 24 seconds Tuesday as
 President Clinton traveled to Connecticut. WNBC-TV said controllers
 never lost radio contact with the plane as it flew 10 miles southeast
 of Kennedy International Airport.
     Arlene Salac, an FAA spokeswoman, would not comment except to
 say, "We are doing an investigation of this. I can confirm that we
 are looking into allegations from a controller that there were
 problems with the radar data."
    Mark DiPalmo, of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association,
 told WNBC that the president's plane disappeared from radar screens
 at 8:38 a.m. at the FAA regional control center on New York's Long
 Island. The plane was flying at an altitude of 21,000 feet.
     "There were no other planes in the vicinity. The president was
 not in any jeopardy," DiPalmo told the television station.
     DiPalmo told WNBC that the long-range radar system at the center
 has a history of going off-line, with planes frequently disappearing
 from screens.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
     Investigators say suicide a possible cause of SilkAir crash
     SINGAPORE - March 10, 1998 09:24 a.m. EST - A suicidal pilot may
 have caused a SilkAir jet crash in Sumatra that killed 104 people,
 investigators said Tuesday.
     Greg Feith of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board told
 a Singapore news conference that pilot suicide was "one of many
 things" investigators were considering as they looked for the cause
 of the Dec. 19 crash.
     The Asian Wall Street Journal, in a front-page report Tuesday,
 said investigators were trying to determine whether Capt. Tsu Way
 Ming sent the plane into its plunge.  The SilkAir Boeing 737-300
 plummeted from nearly seven miles high into Indonesia's Musi River.
     "Although sources close to the investigation stress that other
 possible causes are still under review, they note that the nature of
 the crash has raised questions about the pilots' actions on board,"
 the newspaper report said.
     Tsu had been withdrawn from an instructors' program and had a
 history of disagreements with the co-pilot on the doomed flight,
 chief investigator Oetarjo Diran told reporters Tuesday.
     He confirmed that the flight data recorder stopped recording
 "several minutes" before the plane went down, and said the cockpit
 voice recorder had stopped five to seven minutes before the flight
 data recorder.
     The Asian Wall Street Journal said that this suggested either
 "an unusual form of system failure" or that the crew had turned off
 the recorders intentionally.
     However, no argument was heard between the pilot and co-pilot
 before the voice recorder stopped taping, Diran said.
     "We haven't ruled out anything. We have just started the inves-
 tigation, but that doesn't mean we have said suicide," he said.
     "I think we cannot discount anything right now, not even foul
 play."
     One of the most unusual aspects of the SilkAir crash is that the
 plane was cruising at 34,840 feet when it fell from the sky. Most
 plane crashes occur on takeoff or landing. A sudden plunge in the
 midst of the flight usually suggests a bomb or catastrophic system
 failure.
     Feith, possibly pointing away from suicide as a cause, empha-
 sized that investigators are very interested in learning why the
 tail of the jet came apart in the accident.
     SilkAir is a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, which has never
 had a crash. Almost half the victims came from Singapore.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
             Delta plane skids off Cleveland runway
     CLEVELAND - March 10, 1998 9:00 p.m. EST -- A Delta Air Lines
 MD-88 jet with 140 passengers and six crew members on board skidded
 off a runway into the mud at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport
 early Tuesday, officials said.
     No one was injured in the accident, which may have been weather-
 related, airport spokeswoman Laticia James said.
     A fierce winter storm that slammed the Midwest on Monday de-
 livered a glancing blow to northern Ohio and it was snowing at the
 time of the incident, a Delta spokesman said.
     Passengers on the plane, flying from Atlanta, were escorted off
 down the back stairs.  The plane was later towed off the tarmac for
                                                          ^^^^^^
 repairs. Airport operations returned to normal later, James said.
 ===
--- DB 1.39/004487
---------------