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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1987)
wamm rn Texas ASM llpm V • The Battalion Tuesday, September 1, 1987 College Station, Texas Vol. 83 No. 2 CJSPS 045360 16 pages Tony Gariker, Buddy Walker and David Partridge of the A&M Flying they recruit new members near the MSC. A meeting will be held at the Club take shelter from the sun under the wings of their Cessna 172 as clubhouse today at 7 p.m. for any interested persons. Thai officials fear all dead after jet crash BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — A Thai Airw’ays jet plunged into the sea near Phuket Island on Monday and officials said they believed all 83 people aboard were killed. Two Americans were said to be among the 37 foreigners on the Boe ing 737. Spokesmen said 17 bodies were recovered before search operations halted for the night because of high winds and poor visibility. Meteorolo gists said skies were clear when the crash occurred. “As of 10:30 p.m., Thai Airways believes there are no survivors,” a statement from the airline said. Air Marshal Narong Dithipeng, managing director of the state-run airline, told a news conference ear lier Monday that the plane was try ing to evade a 737 of the Hong Kong-based line Dragonair when it crashed into the Andaman Sea eight miles from the resort island’s air port. A statement from Dragon Airlines Ltd. in Hong Kong said company of ficials spoke to the captain of its air craft and were “assured that the Dragonair aircraft was not in volved.” It gave no details and the Dragonair jet’s crew would not talk to reporters when the plane re turned to Hong Kong. Prayoon Thavisang, manager of the Phuket airport, said the aircraft were following a landing procedure that caused no problems in the past. He told the Associated Press by tele phone he doubted there were any survivors. In Bangkok, a spokesman for Thai Airways said 17 bodies had been recovered when the search was called off at 7:30 P-m. He said there were no reports of survivors. Narong said the plane carried nine crew members, 35 Thai passen gers and 37 foreign passengers: 31 Malaysians, two Americans, two Jap anese and two Europeans. He said the other two passengers were chil dren accompanying adults. A partial passenger list from the airline identified the Americans as William N. Ward and his Thai-born wife Jantree Ward. No further in formation about them was available. Officials said the sea search by a patrol vessel and 20 fishing boats was suspended about 3'A hours after the crash, but rescue boats ringed the crash area to prevent bodies from being swept into deeper wa ters. The Thai Airways flight origi nated in Hat Ya, a commercial cen ter 155 miles east of Phuket. After the Phuket stop it was to continue to about 540 miles northeast of the is land. Narong said, “The reason for the crash was to avoid a Boeing 737 of Dragonair, which also was descend ing.” He told the news conference he did not know the reason for the sus pected near-collision. 8 die in South African mine shaft, 42 still missing WELKOM, South Africa (AP) — A mine elevator cable failed Mon day, sending a metal cage full of miners crashing to the bottom of a 4,500-foot shaft, company officials said. At least eight men were re ported killed and 42 were missing. The accident occurred as hun dreds of thousands of blacks re turned to gold and coal mines after a three-week national strike. Five miners were pulled alive from a small excavated platform 2,300 feet down where rescuers found them. Eight bodies were found nearby. All five were hospitalized with burns, one in serious condition. “There is good medical evidence of burns, which certainly seem to in dicate an explosion,” Mine manager Gregory Maude said. “According to a mine overseer who has seen the eight dead, some are also burned. There is, however, nothing to indi cate sabotage.” Rescuers loaded the survivors one by one into a chair attached to a rope and pulled them up 90 feet to the rescue elevator. It took half an hour to drag each man through the man gled concrete and steel lining the shaft walls. Most of the missing men — 38 blacks and four whites — were be lieved to have been in the two-deck elevator measuring 11 feet by less than six. Mine officials initially re ported an explosion in the shaft at 6:45 a.m., and at one point ex pressed fear that 92 men were miss ing. Miners of both races worked through the night under strong lights at the isolated shaft of the St. Helena mine less than two miles down a dirt road from Welcom, a town of about 50,000 in the red dust and brown grassland of the Orange Free State. Miners were trying to reach the trapped elevator through tunnels linked to an adjacent shaft, but Maude said the job could take days because of the danger of cave-ins. “We believe . . . the lift is probably at the bottom of the shaft,” along with a pile of debris 125 feet deep, most of it mangled metal, Maude said. The nationwide walkout ended Sunday when the National Union of Mineworkers accepted a wage offer the top six mining companies made six weeks ago. Officials of General Mining Union Corp. said there was no indi cation Monday’s accident was con nected with the strike. Seventy per cent of workers in the mine 140 miles southwest of Johannesburg worked during the strike and the No. 10 shaft, where the accident oc curred, had continued to operate. The longest and costliest mine strike in South Africa’s history turned primarily on the union’s de mand for a 30 percent wage in crease, which it lowered to 27 per cent six days before the strike ended. Union negotiators also asked for higher death benefits, which the mining houses agreed to provide, and danger pay in an industry that has an average of 700 deaths and 20,000 injuries a year. Management rejected the de mands for danger pay, more vaca tion time and an extra holiday, but slightly improved the holiday pay and granted pay increases of 15 per cent to 23.4 percent. Officials: Texas has ‘good shot’at getting supercollider AUSTIN (AP) — Texas has a good shot it landing the big-money supercollider pro- tct, officials said Monday after sending the (tate’s two site bids to Washington. “Both the Dallas-Fort Worth and Am- irillo sites are very strong technically and hey are both very well-presented in these iroposals,” said Peter Flawn, chairman of he state’s National Research Laboratory Commission. “I believe that our chances to dn this great national competition are ex- ellent.” If a Texas site is chosen for the atom- smasher, which is to be the largest and most advanced particle accelerator ever built, the state will benefit economically and assume national scientific leadership, officials said. Herbert Woodson, commission vice chairman, said, “I think it not only has great scientific promise, but it has great promise for our engineering, technological and also our economic activity within the state.” The project will be the “most outstanding large scientific experiment to be done in probably the next three decades,” Woodson said. Cost of building the supercollider is esti mated at more than $5 billion and the an nual operating budget will be about $300 million, Flawn said. Up to 5,000jobs will be created during construction, and up to 6,000jobs in related activities. It is estimated that 24 states will submit bids for the project to the U.S. Department of Energy by the Wednesday deadline. Texas officials said New York and Califor nia are expected to join Texas in submitting multiple bids. After a review by the Department of En ergy and evaluation by a select committee of scientists and engineers, announcement of the site is expected to- be made by Jan uary 1989. To enhance the state’s chances in the competition, officials said they are working to pass a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot that will allow Texas to issue $500 million in bonds for the research fa cility. William Banowsky, president of the Dal- las-Fort Worth Superconducting Super Collider Authority, said, passage of the amendment “is absolutely critical if we in tend to send the right message all around the country that this is not simply some thing that a narrow group of scientists is in terested in.” Regents consider proposal to cap enrollment at 4Z000 by 1992 By Lee Schexnaider Staff Writer If the lines have seemed a little Dnger and the traffic on and off the dewalk is more conjested than sual, it’s not your imagination. Donald D. Carter, registrar of exas A&M, says fall enrollment may approach 39,000. Carter said 7,000 to 7,300 freshmen may be en rolled by September 15, when offi cial statistics will be tabulated. “Everything is in a state of flux until then,” he said. But before the increasing student body strains the University’s re sources, the Texas A&M Board of Regents may institute restrictions to cap enrollment at 42,000 by 1992. A plan to cap enrollment was pro posed at a regents meeting on Au gust 24 and if implemented, the re strictions will require higher college admissions test scores from high school graduates. Dr. Donald McDonald, provost and vice president for academic af fairs, attributed the increase to seve ral factors increasing the amount of new freshman entering the Univer sity. “The number of students grad uating from Texas universities is on the rise and will be so through the 1990s,” McDonald said. “There is a 20 percent increase in students grad uating from high school and that will help (increase) A&M enrollment. “A&M is expanding into areas other than agricultural and mechan ical. We have a rapidly growing col lege of liberal arts. We are growing in areas which we have not had a large number of majors.” McDonald said the football pro gram and the amoumt of publicity it generates also have helped enroll ment. Bill Presnal, executive secretary for the regents and vice chancellor for state affairs, agrees with this as sessment. “We have reached a point of res pect,” he said. “The image of A&M as a little rural school has evapora ted.” But Glen Dowling, director of planning and institutional analysis, said the increase in students also will cause problems for the University. “It impacts the faculty first,” Dow ling said. “Sections will be expanded, and more class and faculty will have to be added if the trend continues. “Probably, a number of students registering late will not get classes and sections. There is an optimal level at which we can operate —large quality schools have capped their en rollment.” The tentative plan by the regents grants admission to graduating high school students in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class, regardless of their score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Students who fall in the 11 percent to 25 per cent of their class will have to score at least a 950 on the SAT. The current minimum SAT score for these students is 800, on a scale of 1600. But students who scored between 800 and 850 will be eligible for spe cial evaluation. Students in the second quarter of their class will have to score 1,050, with a 950-special provision limit. Students in the third quarter will need a 1,200 with a 1,100 for a spe cial evaluation and fourth quarter students will need a 1,200 score and will have no provision for evalua tion. Iranian gunners spray shots at Kuwaiti freighter in gulf MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Iranian commandos raked a Ku waiti freighter with machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled gre nades in the Persian Gulf Mon day in retaliation for three days of Iraqi air attacks, shipping sources said. Iraq’s attacks, aimed at forcing Iran to accept a U.N. cease-fire resolution in their 7-year-old war, came as a convoy of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers under U.S. escort anchored off Bahrain. U.S. heli copters looked for a reported mine. In Washington, the White House on Monday termed the timing of Iraq’s attacks “deplora ble,” but called on Iran to comply with the cease-fire resolution. Iran said its artillery shelled Basra in southern Iraq and other border towns in retaliation for the Iraqi air strikes. Iraq’s Bagh dad Radio, monitored in Nicosia, said several civilians were killed and wounded. Iranian commandos in patrol boats attacked the 24,349-ton container ship Jebel Ali off the United Arab Emirates coast near the Strait of Hormuz. The owners, the Kuwait-based United Arab Shipping Co., said the ship was bound for Dubai when attacked “by a speedboat firing rockets and machine guns.” The 32-man crew and two wives who were aboard were un hurt and the ship reached Dubai for repairs, the company said. It w 7 as the first such incident at tributed to Iranian forces since Iraq resumed air attacks on Ira nian targets in the gulf Saturday, ending a 45-day lull. Tehran has said Kuwaiti ships and any U.S. warship escorts would not be exempt from its re taliation against Iraq’s weekend resumption of air raids. Iraqi jets flew 600 miles to the Strait of Hormuz to strike near Iran’s Larak island oil terminal. Military communiques from Baghdad said Iraqi jets hit two Iranian ships Sunday night and Monday morning. The London-based Lloyds Shipping Intelligence Unit con firmed only that the 113,788-ton tanker Shoush, owned by the state-run Iranian National Tanker Co., was hit Sunday. The ship’s engine room was set ablaze, but there was no further word on damage or injuries, ship ping sources said. The sources spoke on condi tion of not being identified. In dispatches monitored in Cy prus, the Baghdad government’s official Iraq News Agency quoted a military spokesman as saying Iraq will continue striking Iran’s oil terminals and other targets. “Iraq is capable of sending 100 fighter jets to raid Iranian towns several times a day if Iran decides to resume the war of the cities,” the unidentified spokesman was quoted as saying. The latest U.S.-escorted con voy of two Kuwaiti tankers was anchored off Bahrain, halfway along its 550-mile voyage up the gulf to Kuwait’s al-Ahmadi oil terminal and near waters where a threat of Iranian-laid mines was considered highest.