Rumours to be open longer
for finals week snack attacks
— Page 4
Condon's Ags to take on
UT in Austin Saturday night
— Page 9
Texas m m V •
The Battalion
pecia
Vol. 82 No. 73 C1SPS 075360 12 pages
College Station, Texas
Friday, December 13, 1985
& Sat. 7-7
1347
die in plane crash at Easterwood Airport
Jet becomes Tireball' after take-off
10a.m.-2pi
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p.m.
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Photos by ANTHONY S. CASPER
Two people were killed and one critically injured
hursday when a Lear Jet 35 owned by the Gen
eral Telephone Company
A&M’s Easterwood Airport.
crashed at Texas
By SCOTT SUTHERLAND
Assistant City Editor
A business jet crashed in what wit
nesses called “a fireball” Thursday
night at Texas A&M’s Easterwood
Airport killing one pilot, a passenger
^nd critically injuring another pilot.
Harry Raisor, airport manager
and director of aviation, said the
plane was attempting to take off
from runway 28 when the accident
occurred.
The plane slid for about 800
yards, narrowly missing marker
lights in the infield of the airport.
Witnesses at the airport said the
plane was about 30 feet off the
ground when they began to see
sparks trailing behind the plane.
Then there was an explosion, af
ter which the jet crashed to the
ground.
They also said the plane, which
belonged to the General Telephone
Company, was engulfed in flames as
it slid across the airfield to a fence
that marks the airport’s boundaries.
Keith McKnight, a junior wildlife,
fisheries and science major, re
ported seeing an explosion that lit
up the sky at about 7:15 p.m.
Bob Wiatt, director of security
and University Police at A&M, said
the dead pilot was identified as Jerry
LaBoid, 43, who was a resident of
San Angelo.
LaBoid was a former Bryan resi
dent, and Wiatt said his parents still
live in Bryan.
Also killed was Susan Teters
O’Rear, 39, a GTE employee in San
Angelo. O’Rear was traveling back to
San Angelo when the crash occurred
and was in Bryan-College Station on
business.
Wayne Melvin Short, 47, also
from San Angelo, was critically in
jured in the crash. Short remains in
intensive care at St. Joseph Hospital
in Bryan.
Wiatt said it wasn’t clear whether
Short or LaBoid was Hying the plane
when it crashed.
Emergency personnel worked
frantically to rescue Short and
pulled him from the wreckage at
about 8:15 p.m. The heavy rains had
turned the airfield into a swamp and
rescue crews temporarily were un
able to reach the scene with an emer
gency vehicles.
Police and firefighters used porta
ble generators to power spotlights,
so they could see inside the twisted
wreckage.
GREEN APARf
rsity Oaks ®
TE APARTMENTS,
iln Drive w
The plane’s fuselage was resting
upside down, but the tail section was
intact and upright. The right engine
was severely burned and the intake
section of the engine had been bent
out into a mushroom shape.
Raisor said that from looking at
the damage to the right engine, he
believes it could have burned or ex
ploded internally.
When reporters were allowed to
view the wreckage, firefighters were
trying to disassemble the left engine,
which had managed to remain intact
despite the f orce of the crash.
Warning signals still could be
heard beeping from the cockpit, and
the bodies of the victims and the in
jured pilot lay immobile on the
ground.
Firefighters said there was no fire
when they arrived shortly after the
crash and that the bodies didn’t ap
pear to be burned.
Debris was scattered across the
taxiway. The nose piece rested in the
middle of the taxiway with control
wires dangling outside it.
The scattered debris and the jet
fuel that spilled on the runways
caused airport officials to dose the
airport shortly after the crash.
All flight arrivals and departures
were canceled after 7:30 p.m., in
cluding commercial flights.
Wiatt said University Police would
guard the wreckage until officials
from the Federal Aviation Adminis
tration arrived to investigate this
morning.
Chuck Cargill, vice-president of
operations, said the airport would
probably remain closed until about 9
a.m.
Weather at the time of the crash
was described as good and wasn’t be
lieved to be a factor in the accident,
Cargill said.
Jim Thompson, a GTE spokes
man, said the plane, a Lear Jet 35,
was used at night primarily as a
cargo plane. During business hours
the plane flies GTE executives on
business trips.
During cargo flights, the seats are
removed unless there is a passenger
and the plane is loaded with GTE
cargo and mail, he said.
Several GTE boxes were scattered
among the debris.
Thompson said in 30 years of fly
ing various aircraft, the company
has never had an accident like this
one. He described the plane as well-
maintained and said it had not had
any major maintenance problems
before.
Thompson added that the pilots
were well-trained and experienced.
He said the plane, which is han-
gared in San Angelo, makes the
cargo runs five to six days a week de
pending on weather conditions.
He wasn’t certain exactly when
the plane left the San Angelo airport
but said it usually leaves around 6
p.m.
The plane was scheduled to make
a stop in Austin before dropping
cargo and picking-up O’Rear at Eas
terwood.
From Easterwood the plane had
planned stops in Houston, Victoria
and Corpus Christi before returning
to San Angelo Thursday night.
Associated Press
wn
GANDER, Newfoundland — A
C-8 charter full of U.S. soldiers re-
urning from the Middle East
tasked and exploded Thursday
^ tear Gander International Airport,
’ tiling all 258 aboard and scattering
;tlts and weapons across snow-cov-
ied woods.
Families and friends learned of
he disaster as they assembled for a
tass jband welcome at the head-
uarters of the 181st Airborne Divi-
ion at Fort Campbell, Ky.
; Cause of the crash, which oc
curred at 5:15 a.m. EST, remained
under investigation, but the White.
House said preliminary reports
showed no indication of sabotage or
an in-flight explosion in history’s
eighth-worst aviation disaster.
The charred cockpit voice and
flight recorders were recovered and
will be taken to Ottawa for analysis,
said Peter Boag of the Canadian Avi
ation Safety Board, who was direct
ing the investigation.
The charter flight operated by
Arrow Air of Miami carried mem
bers of the 101st Airborne who were
being rotated home after six months
service in the multi-national peace
keeping force in Egypt’s Sinai penin
sula.
Military authorities said it might
take a day or two to notify all the
next-of-kin, as as long as a week to
postively identify remains.
Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
television showed debris smoldering
in the snow beneath tall evergreens
in sparse, hilly woods where the
plane went down about a half-mile-
from the runway near Gander Lake.
Airport manager John Pitman
said the aircraft carried 101,000
pounds of fuel on takeoff.
Canadian Transport Minister
Don Mazankowski said the plane
climbed no higher than 1,000 feet
before crashing.
Transport Canada spokesman
Bruce Reid, returning from a heli
copter tour over the site, said there
was no suggestion that the plane ex
ploded in flight.
“Where it came down,” he said, “it
obviously exploded on impact. Ev
erything in the area is charred.”
The Canadian government sent
15 investigators to the scene, accord
ing to Dave Owen of Canada’s Acci
dent Safety Bureau.
At Fort Campbell, base com
mander Maj. Gen. Burton D. Patrick
told a news conference an Army
team would help transfer remains
from Newfoundland to Dover Air
Force Base in Delaware, where iden
tification of the bodies could take up
to a week. A temporary morgue was
established at the airport, Boag said.
In Washington, White House
spokesman Larry Speakes said initial
reports indicate “no evidence of sab
otage” or an explosion in flight.
Maj. Larry Icenogle, a Pentagon
spokesman, said the troops all em
barked in Cairo. He said it was possi
ble that some of the victims might
not have been attached to the 3rd
Battalion of the 101st Airborne, “but
we believe all of them were attached
to the 101st.”
He said the unit’s weapons were
carried in the cargo hold.
Federal Aviation Administration
spokesman Vedder Steed in Atlanta,
Ga., said Arrow Air was among
more than 400 airlines whose opera
tions were the subject of a 1984 FAA
probe.
Neither the FAA nor Arrow Air
could immediately provide details of
the investigation, but Arrow Air
spokesman Robin Mattell in Miami
told The Associated Press the airline
“is in good standing with the FAA.”
Low-power stations
,J„ Station manager says FCC sweeping LPTVs under rug
'r/etd ,
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Y 30
t By JENS B. KOEPKE
Senior Staff Writer
P The perils of a new industry have
Tt their mark on TV-5, a low-
iower music television station that
ias been on the air in Houston since
■uly 12.
ir “Tfie Federal Communications
Commission has created an industry
tat they now want to sweep under
te rug because they don’t know
hat] to do with it,” says Connie
^odtnger, owner of TV-5.
Wodlinger says the FCC created
>w-po\ver television stations hoping
[> entourage hew owners to get into
)ie broadcasting business but that
ower limitations and lack of financ-
tg have stifled the ability of LPTVs
•succeed.
“The FCC philosophy sounded
iodlwhen it was initiated, but the
TV rules and regulations (on
J
power) are so limiting that, unless it
is a very unusual situation, they (sta
tions) can’t be economically viable
and won’t survive and many of them
haven't,” she says. “So in order for
that idea (FCC philosophy) to sur
vive and to allow the industry to sur
vive, not even flourish, the power
would have to be increased and I
don’t foresee that happening."
LPTV stations are limited to 10
watts on a VHF frequency and 1,000
watts on a UHF frequency.
Wodlinger says she was awarded a
construction permit in July 1984 af
ter winning a lottery with about 30
other applicants. It cost $3 million to
set up the station, whose equipment
is almost equivalent to a full-power
station, Wodlinger says.
The station uses a mass-appeal
contemporary hit format in choos
ing its music videos, says Mike
Opelka, TV-5 program director.
Wodlinger says, “My own opinion
is that the only place an LPTV has a
chance of being commercially viable
and surviving is in a major city,
where you can cover enough pop
ulation to be viable. We felt that in
Houston, even with limited power,
we had the potential to reach a lot of
households.”
Because the LPTV industry has
no history, many Financial institu
tions are unwilling to lend money to
investors interested in building an
LPTV station, Wodlinger says.
“Most of the construction permits
have been granted to people that
they (FCC) had originally intended
— those who have not been in the
business — but their dreams of own
ing a TV station have been some
what dampened, when they’ve been
faced with the reality of very limited
coverage and a property that can not
be financed by a bank,” Wodlinger
says.
Although programming on
LPTVs is regulated less stringently
than on FPTV stations, she says, “So
meone has to see your programming
for it to do you any good.”
LPTV programming is covered
only by fairness doctrine and
obscenity provisions, while FPTV
stations must present balanced view
points in public affairs program
ming that is responsive to the prob
lems in their community of license.
To overcome the problem of cov
erage, TV-5 announced on Nov. 12
that it will become Hit Video USA, a
national satellite network, beginning
in December.
“There are very few industries
See LPTVs, page 8
Hansen, Caperton
to speak to grads
By JEANNE ISENBERG
Reporter
Texas A&M University System
Chancellor Arthur G. Hansen
and State Sen. Kent Caperton will
deliver the commencement ad
dresses at two separate ceremo
nies tonight and Saturday at G.
Rollie White Coliseum.
Hansen, who will be leaving his
job as chancellor next year, will
speak to graduates tonight at 7:30
for undergraduate degree recipi
ents in the colleges of agriculture,
business administration, liberal
arts and geosciences. Students
and graduate students of Texas
A&M at Galveston also will re
ceive their degrees tonight.
Hansen says he will be speak
ing about the necessity to re-ex
amine old ideals and values so
that they can be molded to better
fit the present age.
These years are a time of rapid
social change, he says, and society
is in need of this set of ideals to
guide it through ethical and
moral dilemmas. The new grad
uates of A&M are well-equipped
to formulate such values to estab
lish personal direction and a new
direction for our country, he says.
“In years to come,” Hansen
says, “we would hope that each
graduating Aggie could look back
over these years and be able to
say, ‘I have kept the faith and
been true to the high principles
that were implanted during my
years at Texas A&M.’ ”
Caperton will speak to Satur-
See Hansen, page 8
258 die in crash of DC-8 militarycharter in Newfoundland