Argentina crash kills at least 64
■ Survivors speak of being ‘bora
again,’ after airplane goes down
seconds after liftoff.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -
Investigators pulled badly burned bodies from the
charred wreckage of an LAPA airlines Boeing
737 on Wednesday, the day after a fiery crash
claimed at least 64 lives in Buenos Aires.
The jetliner lifted only a few feet off the
ground Tuesday evening before roaring through
an airport fence, skimming across a busy roadway
and striking cars and heavy machinery before
stopping beside a golf course.
“It took out everything in its path before stop
ping, and the plane broke in half,” said business
man Julio Arevalos, who jumped from the burn
ing wreckage. “The flames were coming from the
front of the plane, and there was smoke every
where.”
At least 64 of the 100 people aboard domestic
Flight 3142 were killed, said government spokes
woman Olga Riugord. The Buenos Aires-based
Lineas Aereas Privadas Argentinas said 95 pas
sengers and five crewmembers were aboard the
Boeing 737-204C.
The crash near downtown Buenos Aires’ Jorge
Newbery airport was Argentina’s worst aviation
disaster in memory.
“I feel like I’m born again. When I see the
images on television, I can’t believe I was there,”
Arevalos told The Associated Press. He said the
plane dropped to the ground seconds after liftoff,
bouncing three times as it broke apart.
People on the golf course screamed for the
passengers to get out of the wreckage, which
came to rest on land beside the Rio de la Plata
River.
“There were shouts, cries of desperation, peo
ple on fire. It was hell,” said another survivor, Jose
Gamallo, who spoke with Buenos Aires reporters.
Workers in white gloves zipped bodies into
plastic bags as investigators scoured the rubble
Wednesday. A crane lifted up what appeared to be
ah engine and later removed a section of fuselage
from near two sandtraps. ^
LAPA spokesman Ricardo Wilson said the
plane took, off at 8:55 p.m. and lost contact with
the tower a minute into its scheduled flight to
Cordoba, 475 miles northwest of the capital.
Neither he nor investigators released a possi
ble cause. A team of Boeing investigators flew to
Argentina on Wednesday to assist in the investiga
tion.
One of the plane’s two black boxes has been
found, according to media reports. There was no
«
There were shouts, cries of
desperation, people on fire.
It was hell.”
JoseGamallo
survivor
immediate word on the fate of the pilot or the co
pilot.
At least 10 survivors had only minor injuries
and were released from hospitals, doctors said.
Others were critically injured.
“Many had severe bums over much of their
bodies. Others had broken limbs, arms or legs,”
said Dr. Julio Comando, from the Juan A.
Fernandez Hospital, where most survivors were
taken.
“Today is a day of mourning for all of
Argentina,” said Interior Minister Carlos Corach.
Another LAPA official, Guillermo Capotti,
would not speculate on local media reports focus
ing on one of the plane’s engines. The plane was
delivered to LAPA in April 1970 and had logged
more than 67,000 flight hours.
Serbian police absent in Kosovo schools
NEGROVCE, Yugoslavia (AP) —
The blackboard stands in a puddle, and
the desks are piles of lumber, barely
sheltered by a roof of blue plastic sheet
ing.
But the first day of school
Wednesday was a happy occasion for
Shaban Morina and Ms pupils at Jusuf
Gervalla school — it’s the first time in
nearly a decade that they are attending
classes in a Kosovo not ruled by Serbs.
“The one good thing is that the
police won’t come into the classrooms,”
Morina said, looking out at the drizzly
landscape through the open walls.
“Every first day of classes for die past
seven years, the Serb police have come
to die school to terrorize the children.”
The only disruption during
Morina’s first class Wednesday was the
snapping of the plastic roof tacked
above the skeletal walls of the unfin
ished building, wMch sits next to the
schoolhouse Serbs burned to the ground
a year ago.
The absence of Serbs meant that
ethnic Albanian pupils could return to
schoolrooms they had not used since
1989, when Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic revoked Kosovo’s
autonomy and introduced Serbia’s cur
riculum in its schools.
Rather than send their children to
classes held in Serbian, parents took
their schools underground, holding
classes in homes. Other ethnic Albanian
pupils stayed in their schools but used
only half die building. On the other side
— often separated by walls — die Serb
students had their own schooling.
Sprb security forces inhabited the
Hasan Pristina elementary school in
Kosovo’s capital during the 78-day
NATO bombing campaign aimed at
forcing President Slobodan Milosevic
to end his repression of ethnic
Albanians. After international peace
keepers arrived on June 12, British
troops lived there for a month.
Still, by Wednesday, the concrete,
yellow-painted building was clean, and
die barrier that had separated the Serbs
from the ethnic Albanians had been
removed. Excited 11-year-olds raced up
the stairs, marveling about the absence
of the metal grill that previously kept
them out.
“Today we are a fully free school
and an entirely different school from the
one inhabited by Sabs,” said Ali Gashi,
die school principal.
U.N. officials were uncertain how
many students — ethnic Albanians and
Sobs—would show up for die first day
of class. Most Serb children and their
parents have fled Kosovo for otha parts
of Serbia.
School also resumed across the rest
of Serbia on Wednesday, and pupils
were lectured about NATO’s “mon
strous aggression” against the nation.
Students were told the alliance’s bomb
ing campaign against Yugoslavia was
“incomparable in its bestiality, mon
strosity and ignorance of international
law with any other event in history.”
Lessons about suffering woe being
taught in Kosovo schools as well.
At the Jusuf Gervalla school — in
the Drenica region, where some of the
most bitter fighting during the Serb
crackdown on ethnic Albanian rebels
occurred — children recited a poem
about the poverty and suffering of the
Albanian people earlier this century.
“So you see we have similar condi
tions,” explained teacher Sefer
Krasniqi, motioning to the broken walls
and makeshift roof. “But we are not
under occupation any longer, so we are
able to speak freely and speak our opin
ions.”
_
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aftershock rock Turkey
IZMIT, Turkey (AP) - Mobbing
bus stations and jamming roads, pan
icked residents fled the center of
Turkey’s earthquake zone after two
strong jolts rocked buildings weak
ened by a quake ealfier this month.
At least one person was killed.
Many of the 166 injured hurt them
selves jumping from balconies and
windows when Tuesday’s 5.2-magni
tude tremor hit, followed by a 4.6
magnitude aftershock 20 minutes
later.
The new tremor, like the 1 At
magnitude Aug. 17 earthquake, was
centered in Izmit, a city of 300,000
on the Sea of Marmara.
Falling debris struck a 30-year
old man in Izmit, adding to a two
week death toll that has topped
14,300. Thousands more are missing.
■ Jerusalem
Study says El Nino did
more good than harm
WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite
all of the bad publicity it garnered,
last year’s El Nino may have saved
hundreds of lives and was a major
boon to the economy, a new study by
a leading climatologist indicates.
Overall, the 1997-98 El Nino can
be blamed for 189 deaths - but it
saved nearly 850 lives that would
otherwise have been lost, the study,
said.
And its $4.2 billion to $4.5 bil
lion in damage is far outweighed by
nearly $20 billion in benefits,
according to the September issue of
the Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society.
The El Nino weather phenome
non produced an exceptionally mild
winter in the Northern states and
blocked Atlantic Coast hurricanes.
■ Tanzania
Plane carrying American
tourists crashes in Tanzania
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania
(AP) - A charter aircraft carrying 10
American tourists from a game lodge
in northern Tanzania crashed
* Wednesday near Mount Meru, police
and an air rescue organization said.
Isabel Mbougua of the Nairobi,
Kenya-based African Medical
Research Foundation, or AMREF,
said villagers spotted die downed air
craft near Africa’s fifth-highest
mountain. The plane was on its way
from the Serengeti National Park to
Kilimanjaro Airport.
The rescue pilot, whom Mbugua
contacted by radio, reported move
ment near the wreckage, but it was
not clear who or what was moving -
survivors or villagers.
There was no immediate word on
the identities of the American
tourists. *.