Critical FAA draft report on ValuJet toned down
     CLEVELAND - March 29, 1998 00:55 a.m. EST - Portions of a draft
 report by the Federal Aviation Administration that were critical of
 the agency's inspection of ValuJet Airlines aircraft were omitted
 from a final version, The Plain Dealer reported Sunday.
     The criticisms were based on inspections last August in which
 three of eight ValuJet planes that the FAA checked had maintenance
 problems and the other five had potential problems, the newspaper
 said.
     The draft report said random checks of eight of 33 ValuJet air-
 craft indicated that Atlanta-based FAA inspectors who routinely
 oversee the airline -- now called AirTran Airlines -- were not
 doing an adequate job of monitoring maintenance.
     The final report also omitted an earlier complaint that ValuJet
 was not complying with a consent agreement with the FAA to improve
 its performance.
     Kathryn Creedy, an FAA spokeswoman, declined to discuss differ-
 ences between the earlier and final reports.
     "Whatever drafts you have on your desk, we are not commenting
 on them," she told the newspaper.
     The Plain Dealer reported that four FAA sources said the U.S.
 Department of Transportation's inspector general's office was al-
 ready investigating the differences between the draft and final
 reports. The newspaper did not identify the sources.
     Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman for the inspector general's office,
 said he could neither confirm nor deny an investigation.
     The August inspection was to determine how the airline was com-
 plying with an agreement signed on June 17, 1996, when ValuJet
 grounded itself after five incidents and two accidents -- including
 the May 11, 1996, crash of Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades that
 killed 110 people.
     Last September, ValuJet merged with AirTran Airways of Orlando,
 Fla., and became AirTran Airlines.
     FAA officials could not be reached for comment on Saturday night
 by The Associated Press. A telephone call to the agency's office in
 Washington was answered by a recorded message that said it was
 closed for the weekend.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
          Five killed in crash of Peruvian air force plane
     LIMA - March 29, 1998 11:31 a.m. EST - An air force plane carry-
 ing relief supplies crashed Sunday near a shantytown in northern
 Peru, killing five people, police and local radio station Radio
 Programas reported.
     Police confirmed the accident. They said the plane crashed into
 a canal near a shantytown in the district of Castilla, a few miles
 from the city of Piura in northern Peru.
     "Indeed, an air force plane has crashed with an unknown number
 of passengers," a police officer in the Piura region told Reuters.
     The plane was flying to Piura with government relief supplies
 for victims of the destructive El Nino weather system, police said.
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
           Death toll in Pervian plane crash rises to 28
     LIMA, Peru - March 29, 1998 2:49 p.m. EST -- The death toll in
 the crash Sunday of a Peruvian air force plane carrying villagers
 stranded by flooding has risen to 28, according to official reports.
     Fifteen people survived and seven were unaccounted for in the
 crash, in a shantytown in the northern city of Piura, President
 Alberto Fujimori said. Some passengers walked from the wreckage with
 minor injuries, he said.
     The Russian-made Antonov military transport plane was carrying
 merchants stranded by El Nino-driven flooding from the city of Tumbes
 near the Ecuadorean border to Piura, 530 miles northwest of Lima,
 when it plummeted to Earth about 6 miles from Piura airport.
     The pilot radioed the control tower in Piura to report that one
 engine had shut down and that he would try to land, Fujimori said.
     The plane crashed nose first into a drainage channel in the
 shantytown, splitting into two pieces, he said. There were no reports
 of deaths on the ground.
     The air force arranged the flight for the merchants after floods
 cut the highway between Tumbes and Piura, Fujimori said.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
===
           Army, National Guard ground fleets of Huey helicopters
    BOSTON - March 29, 1998 8:19 p.m. EST - The U.S. Army and National
 Guard have grounded their fleets of UH-1 Huey helicopters, which have
 an unexplained history of potentially catastrophic mechanical
 problems.
    The military has placed wide restrictions on the Vietnam-era heli-
 copters since November -- including barring flights in clouds and
 over water - but declared Hueys safe to fly as recently as last week.
    On Friday, military officials changed their minds.
    "After careful consideration and as a prudent measure of safety,
 the Army is grounding its fleet of UH-1 helicopters until each heli-
 copter engine can be tested to determine if there are excessive vi-
 brations," Bob Hunt, spokesman for the Army Aviation Missile Command
 at Redstone, Ala., told The Boston Globe in Sunday's editions.
    In all, 907 Huey helicopters are expected to be grounded for be-
 tween six months and two years. The majority of those are used by
 the National Guard. Hunt said the National Guard has about 400 newer
 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to offset the impact of grounding the
 Hueys, which went out of production in the mid-1970s.
 ===
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