AGANA, Guam (August 7, 1997 8:40 p.m. EDT) ---- The pilot of
 Korean Air Flight 801 may have taken the jet straight into a hill-
 side, rather than having lost control, a lead investigator into the
 deadly crash said Thursday. A South Korean newspaper report sug-
 gested fatigue was a factor.
 -----------------------------
     MIAMI (Aug. 7) - A cargo plane wobbled and went down after take-
 off Thursday, crashing at the edge of the airport and hurling a wall
 of fire into a bustling business district. All four people aboard
 were presumed dead.
     Flaming debris set cars ablaze and slid up to the doorsteps in
 the busy strip of warehouses, computer parts stores and flower
 wholesalers, melting awnings and sending panicked workers scrambl-
 ing to get out.
     "Everybody was yelling, 'Run! Run! Run!'" said Mildred Marquez,
 who fled from Asian Sources Computer. "We didn't know it was an air-
 plane. We were going crazy. We thought we were all going to die."
     The DC-8 owned by Fine Air Services was bound for the Dominican
 Republic with a crew of three and one security guard on board.
     Huge red flames and black smoke billowed skyward when it crashed
 shortly after 12:30 p.m. Witnesses said it took off at a steep
 altitude (attitude?), hesitated and wobbled sharply to each side
 before it went down in a field.
     Federal investigators, who had already located the flight re-
 corders, will be looking for mechanical problems as well as whether
 pallets holding about 80,000 pounds of textile cargo shifted inside.
     "It went straight up like a missile," said Bill Garcia, who was
 on a United Parcel Service picket line.
     "It veered to the right and to the left and then it just nose-
 dived straight down."
     Wreckage skidded along for more than the length of a football
 field, crossing the six-lane 72nd Avenue, sliding underneath power
 lines and into the parking lot of the shopping center. The cockpit
 was found just 50 feet from the building, which was blackened but
 not otherwise damaged.
     "It was going down sideways and it exploded right in front of
 me," said Johanna Serrer, who works in one of the shops. "I started
 screaming, and I ran inside to tell everyone."
     Firefighters arrived within minutes and doused the wreckage with
 fire-retardant foam.
     At least two people on the ground suffered minor injuries.
     "I can't tell you how lucky everyone was," said commercial pilot
 Al Caputo, who noted if the plane had not crashed in a steep dive
 "you would have had another mile of wreckage."
     Linda O'Brien of Metro-Dade Public Safety Department said all
 four people aboard the plane were presumed dead. Dade County Mayor
 Alex Penelas said later that three of the bodies had been found and
 they were still looking for the fourth.
     The crash came just a day after Miami-based Fine Air Services
 Inc., first sold stock to the public. After the crash, the stock on
 the Nasdaq exchange fell $1.37  1/2 to $14.50, a drop of 9 percent
 for the day and off 15 percent from its peak before trading was
 halted.
     Fine Air, one of Miami's busiest cargo carriers, operates a fleet
 of 15 DC-8s hauling freight to South America, Central America and
 the Caribbean. The company grew out of the 1948 air service that
 transported fresh produce from Latin America to the United States.
     The Fine Air crash came just two weeks after Miami suffered
 another scare when the pilot of a cargo plane fought for control of
 his jet as frightened downtown workers watched from their high-rise
 office windows. The four-engine Boeing 707 cargo plane eveventually
 gained altitude as it crossed downtown and continued on to Gander,
 Newfoundland.
     The Fine Air crash was the second big cargo plane crash in the
 United States in eight days.  A FedEx jet crashed on July 31 at
 Newark International Airport in New Jersey. The five people aboard
 escaped safely before the plane, an MD-11, burned.
 08-07-97 1812EDT
 -----------------
--- DB 1.39/004487
---------------