Word: airstrips
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Authorities had no explanation for the crash, which occurred while the crew was practicing a maneuver called "low approach," in which the plane would fly close to but not touch the airstrip of nearby Evansville Regional Airport. Soon after takeoff, the plane went into a nose dive. William Capodagli was in a seminar room of the motel when the plane hit. "There was this incredible fireball bursting through our window," he says. "Where there should have been daylight was a big spinning ball of flame...
...army claimed it was a tragic accident. On Nov. 7 a planeload of narcotics agents from the Mexican Attorney General's office landed at a clandestine airstrip in hot pursuit of a plane from Colombia that stopped to refuel -- and turned out to contain more than 814 lbs. of cocaine. When the Mexican narcs emerged, more than 100 soldiers already on the ground opened fire, killing seven of the agents...
Although the military claimed that the agents had been mistaken for drug smugglers, mounting evidence indicated that the soldiers were at the airstrip not to capture the smugglers -- both of whom escaped -- but to protect them. Last week an investigation by Mexico's National Commission on Human Rights, aided by videotapes of the scene taken by U.S. Customs agents flying overhead, concluded that the local regional commander, General Alfredo Moran Acevedo, bore the major responsibility for the deaths. Arriving at the scene with reinforcements, after receiving at least two telephone warnings that his men were shooting at drug agents...
...marks the government's second major effort to force miners off Yanomami lands. In May troops blew up 14 landing strips and drove out all but 8,000 of the 40,000 invaders. No sooner had the soldiers left, however, than the garimpeiros returned and rebuilt some of the airstrips. Says Joao Carlos Nicolli, regional administrator of the federal Indian agency: "The big gold lords weren't touched in the first operation. It was a show for the foreigners." He thinks the government is more serious this time. One sign: troops destroyed an airstrip belonging to Jose Altino Machado...
...tourist pressure has been building for years. Today some 30,000 visitors a year come to Mount Sinai. Most arrive in buses from Cairo or else take a twice weekly Air Sinai flight that lands at an airstrip built by the Israelis during their occupation. If the Egyptian government's plans go according to projections, some 565,000 tourists -- an almost 1,800% increase -- will arrive every year. What is wrong with that? That part of the Sinai is a wilderness populated mostly by Bedouins and the 17 Greek Orthodox monks at St. Catherine's monastery. Egypt urgently needs hard...