Two pilots killed in air show crash
     KISSIMMEE, Fla.- April 19, 1998 2:31 p.m. EDT - Two single-engine
 biplanes collided during acrobatic maneuvers at an air show Sunday
 and crashed in flames, killing both pilots.
     The planes fell to the ground in a field about 1,000 yards from
 the nearly 5,000 spectators, and no one on the ground was injured,
 said Deputy Police Chief Ren Taylor.
     The four-plane Red Baron Stearman Squadron was winding up its
 performance at the Kissimmee Air Show of the Stars when two of the
 planes collided at an altitude of about 1,500 feet, Taylor said.
     The crash occurred about 11:30 a.m. EDT as the second day of the
 air show was getting under way.
     The weather was far from ideal for the air show. The airport was
 getting steady 25-mph wind with gusts to 30 mph under low clouds,
 witnesses said.
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Small plane carrying marijuana crashes after being followed by Customs
     DETROIT - April 20, 1998 00:43 a.m. EDT -- A small plane loaded
 with marijuana crashed in a baseball field Sunday night after being
 followed by Customs Service planes for about 1,500 miles. Residents
 ran to help, but some fled with bundles of drugs while the pilot was
 dying, witnesses said.
     Three Customs planes started following the aircraft -- carrying
 300 pounds of marijuana -- near El Paso, Texas, Fire Chief Lee Moore
 said. The pilot apparently ran low on fuel before crashing on
 Detroit's west side.
     Customs officials often follow planes near the U.S. and Mexican
 border. Moore said he believes the pilot, realizing he was being
 followed, was trying to escape to Canada.
     "I'm assuming in his desperation there was an attempt to stop in
 this field," Moore said.
     Customs spokesman Vince Bond said a park ranger spotted the plane
 crossing the Mexican border in the Big Bend National Park near El
 Paso Sunday morning. Customs then launched three planes from Texas
 to track the plane.
     "They began following it covertly, I want to emphasize covertly,"
 Bond said.
     Neighbor Gloria Johnson said she heard a boom, saw the plane hit
 a tree and then crash into the field. She said the pilot was still
 alive when neighbors ran to help.
     "There were big bundles of drugs and money all around the plane,"
 she said. "The bundles of marijuana looked like two big suitcases."
     Johnson said she saw people leave the scene with some of the
 packages.
     "A couple of guys came to help, then grabbed the bags of drugs
 and left," Johnson said. Police would not confirm that.
     The plane, which crashed near a junior high school, was upside-
 down and missing its tail after the crash. About 20 firefighters
 and police officers flipped it over and extracted the pilot's body.
     No one else was believed to be aboard the plane, Moore said.
     As Customs officials removed bundles from the scene, police
 officers searched an area several blocks wide for parts of the
 plane and other evidence.
     "School starts in the morning. We want to get it cleaned up by
 then," Detroit police Officer Bill Ratliff said.
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 UPDATE
       Victims of plane crash are identified; probe continues
 State and federal aviation officials Sunday continued their investi-
 gation into a plane crash in that killed two people Friday in Cocke
 County.
     Cocke County Sheriff Tunney Moore identified the victims as
 William Elliot Sargent, 58, and his wife, Ann Marie, 55, of Jeddo,
 Mich.
     According to officials, the Sargents' single-engine Lance Air
 235 home-built aircraft left the Pontiac, Mich., area Friday en
 route to an air show in Florida.
     The aircraft crashed into a rock outcropping, known locally as
 Buzzards Roost, in the Cherokee National Forest authorities said.
 The plane struck the mountain at about the 3,000 foot level, about
 20 feet below the summit.
     The accident is thought to have occurred about 4 p.m., when the
 Tennessee Wing of the Civil Air Patrol first picked up a distress
 signal from the plane's emergency locator transmitter.
     Rocky Davidson, a Federal Aviation Administration safety inspec-
 tor based in Nashville, said the cause of the crash has not yet been
 determined and the investigation is in its preliminary stages.
     "We have not been able to find a flight plan nor do we have any
 record of communication between this aircraft and Air Traffic
 Control" Davidson said.
     The National Transportation Safety Board will determine the
 probable cause of the crash. However, that agency has up to one
 year in which to file a report, Davidson said.
     Amateur-built aircraft are subject to the same regulations as
 other planes, and they should be able to fly the same distances as
 a factory-built plane, the inspector said.
 Knoxville News Sentinel 20 April 1998
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