Beer-fueled fisticuffs forces plane to land early
     MILAN, Italy - April 7, 1998 2:49 PM EDT - A plea for more beer
 ended in a midair bout of fisticuffs between passengers that forced
 a British jetliner carrying 231 holiday-makers to make an
 unscheduled landing in Milan.
     The Air 2000 plane was flying from Birmingham to Valletta, the
 capital of Malta, when the altercation erupted.
     The pilot requested permission to land in Milan because of what
 he called "a problem on board," airport officials said. Security
 forces, who apparently feared a hijacking, surrounded the plane
 on the runway.
     A 61-year-old passenger from Malta, who had already had too much
 to drink, triggered the incident when he tried to enter the cockpit
 to complain that a cabin attendant had refused to serve him a beer.
     Two other passengers, prison guards on holiday, intervened, then
 the man's 27-year-old son joined the fray, the officials said.
     The prison guards were slightly injured and treated at the air-
 port clinic, while the man and his son were questioned by police.
     The charter flight was expected to take off for Valletta later.
     Air 2000 said it was looking into possible legal action. In a
 statement, it said such incidents were rare although it carried some
 4 million passengers a year.
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            NTSB urges changes in Boeing 747 fuel systems
      * The Web site of The National Transportation Safety Board.
     WASHINGTON - April 7, 1998 4:31 p.m. EDT -- A government safety
 agency said Tuesday that damaged wiring in the fuel monitoring sys-
 tems of TWA Flight 800 and three retired Boeing 747s "illustrate
 unsafe conditions that may exist in other B-747s," and called for
 inspections as soon as possible.
     The National Transportation Safety Board recommended that the
 Federal Aviation Administration order inspections for the oldest
 Boeing 747s, the 747-100 series, as well as some newer models, the
 747-200 and 747-300 series.
     The agency also recommended that the FAA require the replacement
 of Honeywell terminal blocks used on 747 fuel probes that "may
 damage fuel quantity indication system wiring." In addition, the
 NTSB recommended surge protection systems to prevent electrical power
 surges from entering fuel tanks through those indication systems.
     The agency stressed that it has not concluded what caused the TWA
 Flight 800 crash, in which a Boeing 747 blew up off Long Island,
 killing 230 people. The July 1996 crash of the Paris-bound jumbo jet
 occurred soon after it took off from Kennedy International Airport.
     The chief suspect in that disaster is a combination of events
 involving damaged wires and corrosion on a fuel measuring rod that
 could have introduced a spark or flame into the center fuel tank. The
 tank was virtually empty and the vapors in it heated up as the plane
 sat on the runway on a hot day waiting to take off.
     At NTSB hearings last year, experts from Boeing, which manufac-
 tured the 747, testified that since December 1997, the company has
 been testing different ways to protect the center fuel tank from
 exploding -- including using different types of fuels.
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