Taiwanese minister resigns after rash of air disasters
     TAIPEI, Taiwan - March 30, 1998 12:19 p.m. EST -- Bowing to po-
 litical pressure, Premier Vincent Siew Monday approved the resig-
 nation of Taiwan's transportation minister after a string of
 aviation accidents.
     Lawmakers demanded Tsai Chao-yang step down to take responsibil-
 ity for poor oversight leading to the Feb. 16 crash of a China Air-
 lines Airbus A300 that killed 202 people.
     Siew had argued that replacing Tsai would have no immediate ef-
 fect on air safety and said he would give the minister until June
 to make improvements.
     But Tsai told Siew in a meeting Monday that the public's "mis-
 taken perceptions" would seriously hamper his job, government
 spokesman Chen Chien-jen said.
     It was not known who will replace Tsai, who was appointed in
 June 1996.
     Since the China Airlines crash, a Formosa Airlines SAAB 340 and
 a commercial helicopter have plunged into the Taiwan Strait in sep-
 arate accidents, killing a total 16 people. Five other deaths were
 reported in military aviation accidents.
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       Air Force urges collision avoidance systems after crash
     WASHINGTON - March 30, 1998 2:02 p.m. EST - Collision avoidance
 systems need to be installed on U.S. military transport planes
 quickly, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Monday at the con-
 clusion of a probe into a U.S.-German mid-air collision off Africa.
     The findings of the six-month air force probe into the Sept. 13,
 1997 collision of a U.S. C-141 and a German Tupolev 154, which
 killed 33 people, were to be released Tuesday, officials said. A
 separate German probe was to be made public simultaneously in Bonn,
 they said.
     The C-141 was carrying a crew of nine on a flight from Windhoek,
 Namibia to Ascension Island when it collided with the T-154 bound
 for South Africa with 24 military officers and their wives.
     One conclusion air force officials have drawn is that the crash
 could have been avoided if either the U.S. C-141 or the German
 Tupolev 154 had been equipped with collision avoidance systems,
 military officials said.
     After the disaster, the air force promised to accelerate the
 introduction of Traffic Alert Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS)
 into all U.S. military troop transport planes by 2003 at a cost of
 570 million dollars.
     But so far, none of the ageing C-141s have been fitted with the
 systems. An air force spokesman said the first C-141 was not sched-
 uled to be retrofitted before early 1999, and only 35 of an active
 duty fleet of the 135 C-141s will ever get TCAS. Most of the C-141
 fleet will be retired by 2003, Major Byron James said.
     In the entire air force fleet, only 307 transport planes have
 the collision avoidance system, even though U.S. commercial
 passenger aircraft have had TCAS since 1995.
     "I'm not sure it's dragging its feet," Cohen said about the air
 force's progress in installinh TCAS. "There is a problem as far as
 some of the older aircraft, there is a statutory requirement that
 modifications may not be permitted if an aircraft is scheduled to
 be retired within five years ... That has been one of the
 inhibitions."
     "With respect to new aircraft, we certainly have to install TCAS
 as soon as possible and the other modifications on the existing air-
 craft have to be done as well," he said.
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       Air force increases death toll on downed Peruvian plane
     LIMA, Peru - March 30, 1998 5:43 p.m. EST -- A 12-year-old Peru-
 vian boy died Monday from injuries received when a plane carrying
 flood victims crashed into a shantytown, bringing the death toll
 in the accident to 22.
     The air force said Monday that 21 of the 56 people aboard the
 Russian-made Antonov military plane died Sunday when the aircraft
 slammed into a slum in the northern city of Piura, 530 miles north-
 west of Lima.
     The boy was the only person on the ground to die. Local radio
 stations reported the death.
     All five members of the crew survived. Emergency crews flew the
 pilot and 11 other seriously injured people to Lima for treatment,
 air force spokesman Gen. Santiago Dominguez said.
     The air force had arranged for the flight from the border city
 of Tumbes to Piura after El Nino-driven flooding cut the highway
 between the cities. Most of the passengers were merchants carrying
 produce.
     The pilot told air traffic controllers that one engine had shut
 down. He put the plane down in a canal running through the middle of
 the shantytown to avoid hitting buildings, Dominguez said.
     On Sunday, President Alberto Fujimori had said 28 people were
 killed, but air force officials lowered that figure Monday.
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