Word: plane
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Crowe dismissed parallels between Sunday's accident and the Korean Air Lines disaster. The Iranian jetliner, he pointed out, had flown into a combat zone, unlike the KAL plane, which merely strayed into Soviet airspace. The admiral emphasized that the tragedy had to be viewed against the background of the growing hostilities in the gulf over the past two years. He cited the May 1987 engagement in which an Iraqi missile hit the U.S.S. Stark and killed 37 American seamen and the subsequent incidents in which the tanker Bridgeton and the U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts, a frigate, were damaged...
...Uranium mining on the edge of the Grand Canyon National Park creates a threat that flash floods might wash radioactive debris into the park's water sources. Some 50,000 small plane and helicopter flights a year for tourists have turned the place into a flying circus, prompting federal authorities to consider limits on low-flying aircraft...
...Airbus A320 had been delivered to Air France only two days earlier, and the airline was proud to welcome 130 passengers aboard its new plane last week for a scenic demonstration flight. During the 45-minute ride, the sophisticated craft was supposed to buzz the tarmac at a French air show and swoop past 15,771-ft. Mont Blanc. The twin-jet aircraft, renowned as the world's most electronically advanced commercial airliner and celebrated as a symbol of Europe's technological prowess, was packed with local dignitaries, sightseers and journalists. Also aboard: a handful of aviation buffs who paid...
...demonstration quickly turned into disaster. Four minutes after takeoff from a commercial airport just north of Basel, Switzerland, the plane made the first of two planned low-altitude flybys for the crowd of 15,000 attending the air show at the tiny Habsheim, France, airstrip 15 miles away. The announcer touted the new jet ("It's so quiet you can barely hear its engines") as it went by at about 135 m.p.h...
Then the crowd gasped as the plane failed to gain altitude, clipped a stand of 40-ft. beech trees at the end of the runway, and seemed to sink gently into the forest. It came to rest in one piece, but a spreading pool of jet fuel ignited and engulfed the plane. Even so, the chief steward and three flight attendants stayed with the craft, evacuating passengers on inflatable emergency chutes. The crew's heroism kept casualties remarkably low, but three people were killed and about 90 injured. The plane was a total loss, recognizable only by its red-white...