No survivors expected in Mongolian plane crash
     ULAN BATOR - May 27, 1998 07:44 a.m. EDT - A Mongolian airliner
 carrying 28 people, including 12 children, slammed into a snow-
 covered mountain and all those on board were feared dead, a
 government official said on Wednesday.
     Rescue workers who landed by helicopter near the wreckage of the
 Mongolian Airlines plane, which disappeared on Tuesday, had found
 bodies, said Oyundari Tsagaan, an official in the prime minister's
 office.
     "There's a very low probability of anybody being alive," she
 told Reuters.
     The Chinese-built Yun-12 aircraft is designed to carry 19
 passengers and crew, according to its manufacturer. It was the
 second fatal crash of a Yun-12 in Mongolia in a year.
     Tsagaan said the plane had broken up on impact, but she denied
 it was overloaded.
     "The plane had a normal load," she said.
     The twin-engine propeller plane took off from Mongolia's second
 city of Erdenet at 9:17 a.m. (0217 GMT) on a 2-1/2 hour flight to
 Zavkhan province. It lost contact 13 minutes later, a traffic
 control official at Ulan Bator airport said.
     On board were 14 adult passengers, 12 children, a pilot and
 co-pilot.
     Some of the children were on their way home to the countryside
 for the summer holidays from Erdenet, where they attended school,
 Tsagaan said. Erdenet is 440 kilometers (275 miles) northwest of
 the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator.
     Three children from one family were thought to have perished,
 Tsagaan said. It was not immediately clear whether they were
 traveling alone or with their parents.
     Seven children were between the ages of one and five while five
 others ranged in age from six to 16, according to an official with
 a government commission that was coordinating rescue efforts.
     The crash site was 2,800 meters (9,200 feet) above sea level on
 a barren stretch of rocky mountain, the commission official said.
     Another commission official, Bairaa Natsagdorjiin, said it was
 not clear whether the plane was equipped with a "black box" recorder
 that might reveal the cause of the crash.
     The Yun-12 that crashed last June did not have a "black box"
 recorder. Eight people were killed and four survived that crash,
 apparently caused by wind shear while the plane was on its final
 approach to an airport in the Gobi desert.
     China has sold a total of six Yun-12 aircraft to Mongolia,
 according to an official with the Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing
 Corp. But Mongolian officials put the number at five.
     The search commission is headed by Agriculture and Industry
 minister Noroviin Altankhuyag.
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          USAF Reserve General and command pilot near death
     Former Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, the conservative Republican
 who ran unsuccessfully against Lyndon Johnson for the presidency in
 1964, is in declining health and near death, the Tribune of Mesa,
 Arizona, reported Wednesday. The newspaper, citing sources close to
 the family, said Goldwater, 89, has been in poor health for months.
 In 1996, Goldwater suffered a stroke that damaged the part of his
 brain that controls memory and personality.
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   Though truckers relent, Air France pilots may hamper World Cup
     PARIS - May 26, 1998 8:26 p.m. EDT -- The Air France pilots'
 primary union announced Tuesday it would launch a two-week strike
 on June 1 to coincide with the beginning of the World Cup finals
 held in France.
     The SNPL union leaders, speaking after talks with Transport
 Minister Jean-Claude Gayssot, said they have given legal notice to
 the government of their plans for a strike which could be extended
 beyond two weeks.
     The World Cup begins June 10 and ends on July 12.
     The SNPL said earlier it would strike from June 1 but did not
 make it clear if it would continue into the start of the tournament.
    The union could cause the cancellation of most Air France flights,
 with the airline left scrambling to maintain connections between the
 10 French cities hosting matches for the 32 competitor teams.
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 Lufthansa jet makes unscheduled landing for passenger's heart attack
     BILLINGS, Montana - A Lufthansa 747 was forced to make an unplan-
 ned landing at the Billings airport after a passenger suffered an
 apparent heart attack and died.
     The flight was en route from Los Angeles to Germany when Gisella
 Muller, 46, apparently suffered a heart attack about 10 p.m. local
 time Sunday.
     The airliner radioed Billings Logan International Airport and
 requested to land there, said firefighters who responded to the
 scene.
     Planes as large as the 747 don't usually land at Billings, and
 the airport's 10,500-foot runway is a little shorter than ideal for
 a 747 loaded with fuel, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman
 said. The plane dumped fuel before landing in Billings.
     The jet also had to rely more on its brakes to come to a stop.
 Such stress can cause the brakes to catch fire, so as crews rushed
 Muller into an ambulance, the airport fire team doused the plane's
 brakes as a precaution.
     "The brakes were hot but they never caught fire," Fire
 Department Capt. Frank Michaud said.
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