CORONA, Calif. (March 19) - Two small planes collided Thursday
 evening and ignited raging fires as debris plunged into a house and
 condominium about a half-mile apart. At least two people were
 killed.
     The collision happened in uncontrolled airspace about 3 miles
 southeast of Corona, 50 miles east of Los Angeles. The Federal Avi-
 ation Administration didn't know what kind of planes were involved
 or how many people were aboard.
     One body was found at the four-unit condominium, Corona fire
 spokesman Fred Lynch said. A second body also was located, but it
 wasn't immediately clear from which site. It also wasn't known
 whether the dead were residents or occupants of the planes.
     Jimmy Summers, who lives near the two-story home, was getting
 papers out of his car when he heard a big boom.
     "Then I heard some kind of other noise - that's when I saw two
 planes coming down," he said. "They kind of came nose down, kind of
 spinning a little bit. No smoke, no fire from either one of them."
     Firefighters said a woman and two young girls escaped the fire
 at the home.
     "The roof was fully ablaze. There was no saving whatever hit the
 roof. It was completely engulfed," Summers said. "One of the neigh-
 bors had a garden hose trying to put it out."
     Summers said the neighborhood is affluent, with homes ranging in
 value from $300,000 to $500,000 each.
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                45 dead in Afghan airlines jet crash
     SHARKI BARATAYI, Afghanistan -- March 20, 1998 02:30 a.m. EST --
 Forty-five people were killed when an Afghan airlines Boeing 727
 smashed into a mountainside in bad weather, an airline official said
 Friday.
     AFP journalists at the site said rescuers had brought down 32
 body bags and another 15 bags of body parts from the charred
 mountain.
     Searchers found the wreckage of the plane on Sharki Baratayi
 mountain near the town of Charasyab, 15 kilometers south of Kabul,
 but the rescue attempt is being hampered by mines left over from the
 Afghan-Soviet war, which ended in 1989.
     The director general of Ariana Afghan airlines, Hassan Jan, said
 the plane crashed at 2 p.m. (5:30 a.m. EST) Thursday as it hit a
 cloud bank, rain and sleet near the capital.
     "It was not technical problems, just bad weather, but we have to
 go down there and find the black box," he said.
     Initial reports had put the number of dead at 22. But Ariana
 officials at the site confirmed 45 people had been on the plane,
 including the 10 crew members and several Ariana staff.
     He added there is also a possibility Taliban officials, who fre-
 quently use the route, may have been among the casualties, as many
 Taliban pick-up trucks had rushed to the scene.
     Little remains of the plane, which smashed into the mountain
 around 100 meters below the summit, leaving a black scorch mark
 around 200 meters wide and 100 meters high.
     Officials said the search for the black box flight recorder is
 continuing.
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                         UPDATE FOR ABOVE
         Small planes collide in air, crash on homes; 3 dead
     CORONA, Calif. March 20, 1998 00:48 a.m. EST - Two small planes
 collided Thursday and ignited raging blazes as debris plunged onto
 a house and a condominium about a half-mile apart. Three people on
 the planes were killed. There were no reports of fatalities or
 injuries on the ground.
     The bodies of two men were found at the condominium, Corona fire
 spokesman Fred Lynch said. A second body was found in the house,
 Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Mark Lohman said.
     The FAA didn't know what kind of planes were involved and how many
 people were aboard.
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