Word: plane
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...U.S.S. Sides sent seven vaguely worded warnings on an emergency military frequency that the airliner could not receive. They also sent four challenges on a civilian distress channel, but they were not specifically directed at any particular aircraft. Finally, the Sides sent a twelfth message that the plane's crew could not have mistaken as meant for anyone else -- if they had been listening to the emergency channel. Just 40 seconds later, the Vincennes opened fire...
...events: explosions aboard the aircraft ignited an in-flight fire that may have caused system failures and a crash. As evidence, they point to a pathologist's report that found combustion residues in the lungs of more than 70 of the victims, indicating there was a fire in the plane before the final impact killed all the passengers. They cite eyewitness accounts from two truck drivers who saw a yellow glow under the belly of the crippled DC-8 as it plunged to earth. The four also charge that the safety board botched the crash investigation and ignored or suppressed...
Perestroika has come to the press. Kind of. Emulating the White House, the Kremlin laid on a charter plane (only $4,800 a head) for the Moscow-based press corps to follow Mikhail Gorbachev on his latest round of international travels. But the lumbering Ilyushin-62 jet, dubbed "Glasnost One," proved how far Gorbachev has to go to turn his promises into practice. Caviar and vodka helped while away the 14-hour flight, but the Soviets missed the opportunity -- so dear to U.S. officialdom -- to "spin" the news when they provided no briefings for their captive audience. On the ground...
...formal request for American help. Washington responded immediately with offers of medicine and medical equipment, doctors and trained rescue teams, the first time that large-scale U.S. assistance had been given to the Soviet Union since the end of World War II. Over the weekend the first U.S. cargo plane arrived in Yerevan, carrying rescue experts and sniffer dogs. On Sunday tragedy struck again: a Soviet military transport plane carrying soldiers to help rescue victims crashed at the airport in Leninakan, killing 79 people...
...airplane was hit," said Sergio Tomassoni, 64, who was riding in the DC-7 trailing behind. "We saw the smoke and a big ball of fire." The aircraft, shorn of its right wing, smashed to the ground, presumably killing all five crew members. A second missile struck Tomassoni's plane, but it limped 250 miles to a safe landing in Morocco...