LATEST UPDATE
Four Atlanta lawyers among dead in midair collision
ROSWELL, Ga. April 5, 1998 3:13 p.m. EDT - Federal investigators
Sunday began investigating the cause of a midair collision Saturday
between a private jet and smaller plane that killed five people,
including four lawyers.
The victims aboard the jet were identified as lawyers Marion
Allen, Eric Dahlgren, Craig Folds and Michael Fisher, all of the
Atlanta law firm Dow, Lohnes & Albertson.
They all represented Cox Enterprises, owners of the Atlanta
Journal and Constitution.
The four lawyers were flying in a twin-engine Cessna 525 Citation
Jet when it collided with a single-engine Cessna 172 Skyhawk flown
by Rudolph Duncan, who was inspecting power lines for Georgia Power
Co. Duncan was also killed.
The jet carrying the lawyers crashed into a wooded area behind
a home.
Duncan's plane landed in the back yard of a home three-quarters
of a mile away, with an eight-foot section of its wing slicing
through the home's garage.
Its severed tail section came down in a swimming pool behind a
home in Roswell, Ga., an affluent subdivision 20 miles north of
Atlanta.
No one on the ground was injured.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board's
Washington, D.C., headquarters and the Federal Aviation Administra-
tion began an investigation of the collision Sunday.
The jet had taken off from Peachtree-Dekalb Airport, just east
of Atlanta, bound for Harrisburg, Penn., said Preston Hick, regional
spokesman for the NTSB. The lawyers had planned to attend a
corporate meeting in Hershey, Penn.
Duncan, also from Atlanta, took off from Mathis Airport in
Cumming, Ga., about 50 miles north of Atlanta. He was scheduled to
inspect power lines in north Georgia, an area battered by a tornado
and severe thunderstorms over the past three weeks.
Saturday was an overcast day in the area, but Cobb County police
spokesman Robert Quigley said that there was no indication weather
was a factor in the collision.
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Taiwan develops first supersonic anti-ship missile
6 Apr Web posted at: 01:58 JST, Tokyo time (16:58 GMT)
TAIPEI, April 5 (Reuters) - Taiwan, facing rival China's growing
military modernisation, has successfully developed and tested its
own supersonic anti-ship missile, a local report quoted sources as
saying on Sunday.
The mass circulation China Times showed two pictures of the
recently tested Hsiung Feng III missile, developed by the military's
Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology -- Taiwan's main
weapons research centre.
It was Taiwan's first locally developed supersonic missile, the
report said.
The institute was funded from a secret budget to develop
advanced weapons, it said.
The military declined to comment. Taiwan began developing its
own advanced weapons after the United States and other
supporters switched diplomatic ties two decades ago to Beijing.
Beijing has regarded Taiwan as a renegade province since a civil
war split them in 1949. Accordingly, Beijing opposes arms sales to
the Nationalist-ruled island as infringing Chinese sovereignty.
Since the 1980s, Taiwan has developed anti-ship Hsiung Feng
missiles, anti-aircraft Sky Bow and Sky Sword missiles and even a
home-grown fighter, the Indigenous Defence Fighter or
Ching-Kuo.
Taipei says it must maintain a strong defence in the face of Bei-
jing's long-standing pledge to use force against Taiwan if it
abandons its pro-unification policy and opts for independence.
Beijing staged a series of war games and missile tests near Taiwan
around the island's first direct presidential election in March 1996
in what it acknowledged was a bid to chill strong independence
sentiment on the island.
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