Word: wings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
LIKE MOST TRAGEDIES, THE CRASH OF AN EL AL 747-200F cargo jet last week came without warning. Six minutes after taking off from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport bound for Tel Aviv, the pilot reported a fire in a right-wing engine. Seconds later another engine failed and the freighter hurtled into a 10-story apartment building just 10 miles from the airport. As rescue workers uncovered the remains of 51 victims on the ground -- many others were incinerated and will never be found -- investigators searched for an explanation. El Al says an engine fire on the same plane...
...baiting gambit had been launched by Robert Dornan, the flamboyant right-wing Congressman who is co-chairman of the Bush campaign in California. Dornan last month got hold of a 1989 front-page article in the Arkansas Gazette that discussed Clinton's Moscow trip. He then began railing against Clinton in late-night House speeches, often delivered to an empty chamber, but nonetheless carried on C-SPAN. Besides suggesting that Clinton may have been a dupe of the KGB, Dornan heatedly attacked the Democrat's draft record and antiwar views...
Thus when Dornan and three other right-wing Congressmen called on Bush and Baker in the White House at 8 a.m. last Tuesday, they found a most attentive listener in the President. One of the Congressmen claimed the Moscow and antiwar issues could "kill Clinton." The very next day Bush was on the King show demanding that his opponent come clean about his trip to the U.S.S.R. In a phrase heavy with innuendo, the President added, "I don't want to tell you what I really think, because I don't have the facts . . . but to go to Moscow...
...past 10 months, however, two 747 cargo planes, model 200, have gone down in alarmingly similar circumstances. A China Airlines plane lost both its starboard engines shortly after takeoff from Taipei last December. Over Amsterdam last week, the engines on the El Al cargo flight's right wing also dropped...
Though investigators do not know for certain what caused either of these crashes, they suspect that the steel pins that attach the engines to the wing may have failed. Even before the China Airlines accident, Boeing was concerned about wear and tear on the so-called fuse pins, 4-in.-long cylinders of machined steel designed to hold each engine securely under the wing. Each engine has four pins. Up to a year ago, airlines had found deterioration in seven pins. Since then, eight more weakened pins have been discovered. The problem seems to begin with pitting and corrosion that...