Banner Graphic, Volume 20, Number 17, Greencastle, Putnam County, 23 September 1989 — Page 3

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NEW YORK (AP) The copilot of the USAir jet that crashed into the East River was making his first takeoff in a passenger-carrying Boeing 737-400 when he mistakenly pushed a button that cut the throttle, investigators said. The pilot tried to remedy the error by increasing engine thrust manually, but then decided to abort the takeoff, James Kohlstad, acting administrator of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference Friday night. ALSO FRIDAY, authorities suspended the pilot’s and co-pilot’s flight licenses for leaving the scene of the crash. Two passengers died when the Charlotte, N.C.-bound plane skidded off the end of LaGuardia Airport runway Wednesday night. Though he described the mistake by co-pilot Constantine KJeissaf, 29, and detailed his lack of experience on that model of aircraft, Kohlstad didn’t explicitly blame pilot error for the crash or say if investigators had pinpointed the cause. THE CO-PILOT was in charge of the highly computerized controls when he mistakenly pushed the “auto-throttle disconnect button” as the aircraft was rolling down the runway, Kohlstad said. The automatic throttles arc

Ciean-up begins in So. Carolina

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) Hundreds of National Guardsmen patrolled Charleston’s streets against looting today and residents of the Carolinas began rebuilding their hurricane-shattered homes. Chainsaws buzzed, crews worked around the clock to restore power and telephone communications, and insurance agents braced for claims that could run into the billions from Hurricane Hugo, the region’s most devastating hurricane in 30 years. “IT IS THE worst storm, the worst disaster, I’ve ever seen anywhere,” a shocked Gov. Carroll Campbell said after surveying the destruction by helicopter. “We’re going to be a long time digging out of this and rebuilding.” The hurricane was blamed for 12 deaths in the Carolinas. In the six hours Hugo and its 135 mph winds surged through the state, it flattened dozens of homes and buildings, snapped trees, twisted bridges and washed scores of

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programmed by the flight crew. The button Kleissaf should have pushed would have accelerated the plane automatically to a preset speed for takeoff, he said. As the plane continued down the runway, the pilot, 36-year-old Michael Martin, jumped in to try to increase the throttle manually, Kohlstad said. THE PLANE started drifting to the left and “the pilot felt and heard a vibration which concerned him,” and then cut power to abort the takeoff, Kohlstad said. The pilots also failed to call out the jetliner’s speed as it rolled down the runway as required, Kohlstad said. “It was clearly a lack of proper procedure being followed in the cockpit,” he said. Kleissaf had controlled takeoffs in 737-400 s in training, Kohlstad said, but had never taken off in that model plane with passengers aboard. MARTIN HAS BEEN a captain since July 1 and had flown only 138 hours in that capacity on the 737-400, The New York Times reported Saturday. He had about 4,000 hours on all models of 7375, mostly as a co-pilot, the paper said, quoting unnamed government and industry sources. FAA records show Kleissaf received his commercial pilot’s

boats ashore. Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said damage in his 3-cen-tury-old city alone might reach $1 billion. “THERE’S JUST destruction everywhere,” said Riley, who imposed a curfew Friday evening. Up to half a million customers across the state were without power as of late Friday. In inland Columbia, people lined up at an ice warehouse with coolers. Some areas of Charleston were without water, and residents were told to boil their drinking water. Two hundred miles inland, Charlotte, N.C., also sustained heavy damage, and 90 percent of the city of 375,000 residents was without power, said J.J. Kelley, a police spokesman. TWO PEOPLE WERE killed by Hugo after it moved into Virginia as a tropical storm. In the Caribbean, where Hugo first touched land, the storm killed 2729 people and left 50,000 homeless.

license in October 1987 and an instructor’s license six months later. His FAA record is clean, said FAA spokesman Bob Hoppers in Oklahoma City, Okla. Investigators questioned Martin and Kleissaf separately for five hours Friday. Both men later submitted to urine tests for drug and alcohol, but the results weren’t immediately available, Kohlstad said. THE FEDERAL Aviation Administration Friday suspended Martin’s and Kleissaf’s flight licenses because they left the scene after the crash and could not be questioned immediately by investigators, FAA Administrator James B. Busey said. He called their conduct “highly questionable.” At his news conference, Kohlstad also criticized the pair for not volunteering for alcohol and drug tests earlier. “The provision of urine samples and no blood samples almost two days after this accident seriously impedes our investigation and unnecessarily creates an environment of suspicion,” he said. NEVERTHELES, Kohlstad noted that Martin and Kleissaf helped passengers out of the plane after the crash, and that airline regulations didn’t require them to remain at the scene.

“All things considered, we lucked out in a lot of ways,” said Chipp Bailey, spokesman for Mecklenburg County Emergency Management in Charlotte, where the most serious injury reported was a broken pelvis suffered by a woman when a tree crashed through her roof. The hurricane and its tidal waves of up to 17 feet smashed ashore at Charleston late Thursday. By Friday evening, the storm had advanced further west than expected, moving into Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and western Pennsylvania, where the National Hurricane Center stopped tracking it. PRESIDENT BUSH declared seven South Carolina counties with a total of 750,000 residents a disaster area. Hundreds of insurance adjusters have come to South Carolina to process the damage claims, but it will be days before they begin to catch up, said state Insurance Commissioner John G. Richards.

Superpowers reach arms accord at Rocky Mt. talks

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. (AP) U.S. and Soviet negotiators, meeting under the splendor of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, agreed Friday to permit on-site inspection of each other’s underground nuclear tests, apparently ending a 15-year deadlock, a senior Soviet official announced. The accord, worked out by the negotiators guided by Secretary of State James A. Baker 111 and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevzardnadze, was hailed by the Soviet official as “good news.” EARLIER FRIDAY THE two sides reached tentative agreement on two measures-to lower nuclear tensions. Formal announcements are planned by Baker and Shevardnadze at news conferences Saturday night. The agreement would send socres of American inspectors to the Soviet test site at Semipalatinsk to ensure that detonations that are part of the Soviet nuclear weapons program aree within legal limits. THE CURRENT ceiling under 1974 and 1976 treaties is a force of 150 kilotons, or 150,000 tons of TNT. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945 exploded with a force now estimated at 1 about 13,000 tons of TNT. The Soviet official, who briefed reporters on the day-long BakerShevardnadze talks on condition that he not be identified, said that test ceiling could be reduced to as low as 50 kilotons. He said a deci-

Dealer lured near White House to make cocaine sale

WASHINGTON (AP) The dealer who sold the crack cocaine President Bush used as a prop in his Sept. 5 televised speech on drugs didn’t just happen to be across the street from the White House when he peddled it He was lured there. THAT WAS A part of the story the president didn’t tell when he held up a clear plastic bag labeled “evidence” containing a handful of crack nuggets. “We wanted to do a government sting,” presidential press secretary Marlin Fitzwater said Friday. “We said we wanted to make a buy in front of the White House. The DEA said, ‘No problem.’” But while Fitzwater defended the arrangement, another senior White House official suggested the Drug Enforcement Administration had been “a little overzealous.”

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Ten killed after explosion at British military school

DEAL, England (AP) An explosion ripped through a music school for British military recruits Friday and killed 10 people and destroyed or damaged several buildings, authorities said. The IRA claimed responsibility. Paul Condon, chief constable of the Kent police force, said the victims ranged in age from 20 to their mid-30s. Nine of the dead were marine bandsmen and the 10th was not identified. An earlier police toll of 11 dead was an error caused in the confusion of retrieving bodies, Condon said.

sion on whether to do that might be taken by Baker and Shevardnadze before they wind up their meetings. It would allow Soviet inspectors to monitor the U.S. test site in Nevada. THE AGREEMENT could pave the way for Senate ratification of the 1974 and 1976 treaties, which critics had contended did not contain adequate safeguards against violations. In fact, former President Ronald Reagan accused the Soviets in two reports to Congress of cheat-

“WE TOLD THEM that if a buy could be made near the White House, so much the better. They took us literally,” said the official, asking not to be identified. A Democratic senator from Louisiana, John Breaux, criticized the president’s use of the prop as “staged.” “Is this really a drug war, or is this theatrics and screenplay?” he asked. “We don’t need the president to lure drug pushers to Lafayette Park for photo opportunities.” The Washington Post, which first revealed the circumstances behind the Bush prop, said the teen-age drug seller was so unfamiliar with the area that he asked, “Where the (expletive) is the White House?” Told it was the president’s residence, he replied, “Oh, you mean where Reagan lives.”

September 23,1969 THE BANNERGRAPHIC

TWENTY-TWO people were injured, and 12 remained hospitalized. The cause of the explosion at the Royal Marines Music School in the seaside city of Deal was not immediately known. “It is not yet absolutely confirmed that it is a bomb,” Defense Secretary Tom King said. Kent Police said the explosion occurred in a lounge at 8:26 a.m. just after morning band practice outside. A three-story barracks building was demolished and dozens of surrounding homes were damaged. Four were nearly destroyed.

ing charges the Soviets flatly denied. The agreement clears the way for American on-site inspection at Semipalatinsk and the use of a new sophisticated technique that measures the speed of destruction of a coaxial cable in a vertical hole near die blast. THE SOVIET official said the agreement gives the two sides the option on which method to use and his government still prefers the seismic approach.

Bush’s drug war starting another one WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush’s war on drugs is caught in a partisan battle in the Senate, with Democrats trying to add prevention and treatment money and Republicans arguing the revision would weaken the defense budget “If we’re not willing to spend $l5O million more, this is no war,” Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, said Friday after a week of closeddoor efforts to reach a compromise failed. THE TALKS BROKE off Friday and no new negotiations were scheduled. Republicans were proposing to add SBSO million to the $7.9 billion program Bush announced two weeks ago and Democrats were holding out for an additional $1 billion, with no further talks scheduled. The parties also were at odds over how to distribute cuts in programs for money to go to the anti-drug effort. “We have to wage this war and the sooner we get at it the better it’s going to be,” Hatfield said.

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