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.