Word: plane
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Force Risking Lives of Trainees? Last year, the U.S. military lost pilots in aircraft ranging from F-114 fighters to C-130 transport planes. But a TIME magazine investigation finds that the most dangerous plane in the military may well be the Air Force's prop-driven T-3 trainer...
...free to bid for his services. That's the route Livan took before signing a $4.5 million contract with the Marlins. Since Orlando reportedly an even better pitcher than his brother, the Series MVP, execs from deep-pocketed teams such as the Yankees will be on the first plane to Nassau the moment a deal is worked...
...precise identity may be disturbingly moot. In a week of technical testimony considerably more alarming than had been expected, safety-board chairman James Hall made it clear that the fuel, transformed from a stable liquid state to volatile vapors by the exhaust heat from air conditioners cooling the plane on a hot July evening, was so combustible that almost anything could have touched it off; that 970 other currently active 747s may be at some risk for the same catastrophe, especially when the air conditioning is overworked; and that, in Hall's opinion, the industry has been remiss in checking...
...possibilities, and last Tuesday he announced his retirement to private life. The disaster was now officially an accident, and the major drama at the safety-board hearings was expected to be the reactions of some 100 relatives of victims, invited as observers. Indeed, after bravely perusing transcripts from the plane's cockpit voice recorder (the captain at one point noted the plane was climbing especially fast, like a "homesick angel") and toughing out excruciatingly detailed computer-generated crash simulations and a slide marked "Chart 4.7--Body Fragmentation," several dozen relatives marched from the hall to protest the unapologetic testimony...
...seemingly simple answers--distance the air-conditioning units from the tank or fly with it full of fuel--would boost ticket prices. So would "inerting," injecting a nonexplosive gas to decrease the fuel's volatility, although the manufacturer of the $1.5 million inerting units used in some military planes claims that simpler civilian versions would cost just $80,000 per plane. Some inerting gases, however, are potentially lethal: they reduce one danger to passengers but increase another. Cautioned Boeing's chief fuel-system engineer, Ivor Thomas: "We would much prefer to be slow and careful and correct than to rush...