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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 7, 1988)
The Battalion Monday, Nov. 7, 1988 Page 9 iBHnpnpa IB _ _ *tiei Air crashes prompt questions on chatter WASHINGTON (AP) — Two fatal aiiliner accidents have prompted ques- ti|)us about idle chatter in the cockpit and raised concerns by some safety officials that pilots may not always be focusing on business when they should be. ■ Federal investigators at the National ’Jiansportation Safety Board are closely examining the tape covering nearly 30 minutes in the cockpit of Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 last August before the Boe ing 727 crashed seconds after takeoff, killing 14 of the 108 people aboard. ■ More than half of the tape, covering a lengthy taxi period at the huge Dallas- Fbrth Worth International Aiiport, in volves impertinent conversation among the pilots and two (light attendants on subjects ranging from the recent pur chase of a house to the habit of birds nesting near airports. Nearly 11 minutes of the tape were omitted from the transcript because they were considered irrelevant, including a reference, according to sources, of the disclosure in news reports a few days be fore the crash of idle chatter aboard a Continental Airlines that crashed in Denver 10 months earlier. If there is an accident, one participant in the Delta cockpit reportedly reminded his colleagues, their words might end up in the newspapers, too. Later, the plane’s captain told investi gators he did not care for the lengthy presence of the flight attendants in the cockpit, but that it was not his nature to order them from the cockpit during the long takeoff delay. Investigators emphasized that so far there has been no clear evidence linking these conversations — some of which was technically legal because the plane was not moving — with the possible cause of the crash. But investigators are trying to deter mine whether the flight crew forgot to 3ush, Dukakis both claim last-minute race momentum >to by Kathy Have' Associated Press ■ George Bush and Michael Dukakis both laid claim Sunday to precious, last- njinute momentum in their campaign marathon, the vice president declaring th( tide was “moving in our direction” abd the combative underdog insisting he Was “rocking and rolling” to an election ulset Tuesday. ■ The political equivalent of a nuclear exchange occurred on television, where the Republicans and Democrats spent millions of dollars in advertising for the failing hours of the campaign. The two Jindidates bought time for 30-minute ■mmercials on all three major networks foi election eve on Monday. ■ Although national polls pointed to a jetory by GOP nominee Bush, both ndidates battled the clock and physical haustion in a final drive to snare unde led voters and nail down the presi dency. ■ NBC News said Bush led nationally by five percentage points, and that one of Te u of how danger! Cronauer said, ic attitude — if my name on iu, « P * about it Ifit4^B er y ‘ lve votcrs werc undecided or >n it — every one camel h scars — somnii if the scars earner :d home to a co^ ncm, and that 1 cterans Cronaner :y like the mov!; 1 lother side of tej that. is happiest cxpeE ten he left, states, he worke >r radio and televj ed his own adveitt ■ I970’s he co-wrii tarn — and it will ■ritually found it!j . and became' tering the Air F(| io and television! oversees, Crot 1 credit hours site undergraduate dJ when someoneit| contacted the i his part-time slid r that he was noli vithin 30 daysoi| I. etumed to <, get his master’ll: working toward !| i has yet to figinti want his autognp! sign autographs 13 year old girl tr neighbor was ini Cronauer said. "! s about it. Heisf s message —hi- <s’....And thatfl ike that that njught switch allegiance, p “There ain’t no stopping us now un less we stop ourselves,” the vice presi dent said at a breakfast rally in Colorado Springs, Colo. ■ “We can’t turn the White House over tl the people who claim to be on our side but who left the country on its back,” Bush said. ■ Countered Dukakis, also beginning his day in Colorado: “He’s slipping and sliding, we’re rocking and rolling.” He sought to raise fears over the possibility that Bush — if elected — might put vice presidential running mate Dan Quayle in charge of the White House crisis man agement team. “Gives you the chills, doesn’t it?” Dukakis asked. “Think about it — the Cuban missile crisis, with Dan Quayle in charge.” Democrats voiced confidence they would retain or perhaps widen their ma jorities in the House and Senate in Tues day’s balloting, and they got little dissent from Republicans on that score. One of the tightest Senate races was in Florida, where a late-hour poll showed a virtual dead heat between Democratic Rep. Buddy MacKay and Republican Rep. Connie Mack for the seat being va cated by Democratic Sen. Lawton Chiles. Democrats also hoped for modest gains among the 12 statehouse races on the ballot. It was the costliest campaign in Amer ican history, and just one piece of it, a series of California ballot initiatives, had a price tag of more than $100 million. Bush aide Alixe Glen described the vice president’s rapidly changing itine rary as a “Magical Mystery Tour.” Du kakis tried to defy the clock and was fly ing overnight from Spokane to Cleveland and then St. Louis — and then back to the West Coast for a noon rally Monday. A series of state polls provided a pic ture of several dose races. One poll gave Bush a 17-point lead in Texas, with its 29 electoral votes. But Dukakis was re ported gaining on Bush in the latest sur vey in Colorado, and holding an eight- point lead in Iowa. NBC News said its nationwide survey completed Saturday night showed the vice president with a lead of 48 percent to 43 percent, down from two weeks ear lier, and that a very high 21 percent of the voters are undecided or may still change their minds. properly set the jetliner’s wing flaps, which help it gain lift, and whether the conversations distracted them from pre paring the plane for flight. An exchange lasting 7 minutes and 42 seconds between co-pilot Carey Kirkland and a senior flight attendant began as the crew was going through one of the pref light check lists. Finally, the exchange was cut short by Capt. Larry Davis, prompting an apology from Kirkland about “sitting here talking to the flight attendant,’’ according to the transcript. Later flight engineer Steven Judd told investigators he had been uneasy about the attendant’s lengthy presence. While there is no link established be tween these discussions and the accident, some NTSB investigators are uneasy about the casual and relaxed demeanor the exchanges reflect. Furthermore, several aviation safety officials not involved with the Delta in vestigation suggested such extraneous discussions before takeoff are common. “It’s very difficult to legislate against people interacting in a job situation,” says Clay Foushee, an aviation safety re searcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. Foushee said while some easual ex changes may help a flight crew feel at ease and work together, there also have been numerous pilot complaints received through NASA’s anonymous aviation re porting system over the years about pilot distractions, including inappropriate conversation and untimely presence in the cockpit of flight attendants. Earlier this year, the NTSB in its final report on the Nov. 15, 1987, crash of the Continental Airlines jetliner in Denver also raised concerns about idle chatter in the cockpit. That crash, which killed 28 people, was attributed to the pilot taking off in snow with ice on the wings. Four minutes before takeoff, the two Continental pilots engaged in almost three minutes of nonpertinent social con versation — reportedly involving a flight attendant — which would suggest inat tention to more important details such as the weather and its effects on icing, the safety board said. Since 1981, the Federal Aviation Ad ministration has had a sterile cockpit rule that prohibits any conversation among flight crews not related to the operation of the aircraft when the plane is taxiing and in motion, and when flying below 10,000 feet in an approach or departure. Flight attendants also are specifically prohibited from entering the cockpit dur ing those periods. The requirement was prompted by concerns at the FAA about an unusually high number of cases in the late 1970s, including several accidents, in which pi lots were distracted from their duties by idle chatter and other requirements such as making cabin announcements during “critical phases of flight.” FAA and other aviation officials con cede they have no idea how often the rule is ignored. Israelis bomb Lebanon business SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli heli copter gunships rocketed the shop of a boat dealer suspected of links with PLO guerrillas Sunday, demolishing the busi ness and wounding five people, two of them seriously, police said. The Israeli army said its warplanes de stroyed a Palestinian guerrilla base in south Lebanon. It did not mention cas ualties. Lebanese police said four Israeli Co bra helicopter gunships blasted the shop and a nearby citrus grove with eight rockets in two raids. The shop in the southern port of Sidon was closed at the time. A police spokesman, who cannot be named under standing regulations, said the shop owner, Mahmoud Hijazi, was suspected of renting two motorboats to PLO guerrillas and selling the guerrillas spare parts. It was the sixth Israeli air strike against guerrilla targets in south Lebanon in three weeks and the 21st this year. By police count, 108 people were killed and 204 wounded in raids since Jan. 3. Hijazi’s motorboats, anchored off the beach about 600 yards from his shop, were not hit in the raid, police said. Earlier police reports said aircraft at tacked guerrilla bases in the teeming Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp on Sidon’s southern outskirts. Police said the guer rillas in the camp opened up with anti aircraft fire but were not targeted. Israeli-backed Lebanese militiamen also killed three guerrillas who appar ently landed in a boat on the Medittera- nean coast just north of Israel, the army command said. An Israeli army announcement said the base attacked Sunday was used for launching attacks and ammunition stor age. It said all planes that took part in the raid returned safely. The brief announcement gave no fur ther details. The attack followed mock raids by six Israeli jets against the Palestinian guer rilla strongholds at midmorning. Palestinian camps south of Sidon have taken the brunt of the stepped-up Israeli raids, which have by police count have killed 40 people and wounded 91 in the past three weeks. The blitz is in apparent retaliation for a suicide car-bombing that killed eight Is raeli soldiers in south Lebanon on Oct. 19 and a firebomb attack that killed an Israeli mother and her three children in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Oct. 30. Voter turnout major issue for Nov. 8 Associated Press Democrats and Republicans are both concerned with voter turnout in the Nov. 8 election. Only half of eligible voters are ex pected to turn out for Tuesday’s bal loting, when a president, vice presi dent, 33 senators and 435 House members will be chosen. Republicans and Democrats alike are keenly aware that getting people to vote will be their No. 1 challenge. Political parties, unions and other groups are running phone banks to reach swing voters as well as party faithful. As usual, workers will hand out leaflets, arrange for baby-sitters and escort people to the polls. But there are also some more unusual strate gies. In Arkansas, where the deer-hunt- ing season opened Saturdayj Republi cans mounted a direct-mail campaign encouraging hunters to get an absen tee ballot if they won’t be back from hunting in time for the election. Coalition ’88, a group of homosex uals and others who want two Cali fornia AIDS initiatives defeated, will have hundreds of volunteers on Elec tion Day erecting “human bill boards” at 70 major intersections in Los Angeles urging voters to get out and turn down the two propositions. Both parties are conducting mas sive drives for the state’s 13.5 million registered voters but worry about the dampening effect of a ballot with nine state initiatives and possibly hundreds of local measures. State GOP chairman Bob Naylor says: “I’m very concerned that peo ple will be confronted with long lines at the polls, get early results from the East Coast and absentee ballots and say, ‘What the heck. I won’t vote.’” Nationwide, public-interest groups predict that only 50 percent or fewer of the eligible voters will turn out, one of the lowest percentages this century and down from the 1984 fig ure of 53 percent. The AFL-CIO will have 500,000 volunteers out on Election Day, a ma jority of them in states with the most union members, which also happen to be states with big electoral votes. DON’T STOP AT THE TOP VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS ALL THE WAY DOWN THE BALLOT WOULD YOU RATHER SUPPORT SOMEONE FROM THE PARTY OF: Jimmy Carter Mike Dukakis Walter Mondale Teddy Kennedy Jim Wright OR WOULD YOU RATHER SUPPORT SOMEONE FROM THE PARTY OF: Abraham Lincoln Ronald Reagan George Bush Nichols cap is on film. :nes of everyda) : wiss happcninii >o explored. 'ers to the Alpiai see the drama of I play similar i» n Plays,” whicli|| ;t. legendary stoijj ngful conviction mt (to shool ai > head) led in revolt agai nent to gain then I he film were it the city of Zuj ^al and competr nfamous Matter Falls at Schaf ie screen. : travelogue is K a different coit r problem is that:: al film like ‘ St ” it makes yo* HELP THE AGGIE GOP TONIGHT TO HELP: George Bush Beau Boulter Joe Barton Ed Emmett Kent Hance Tom Phillips Gary Norton Randy Sims Hub Kennedy (Write-in) Wes Peyton Nathan Hecht Paul Murphy We will meet at 7:00 in 701 Rudder Then get to work for the Ticket of the 90’s Lets Have A Victory As Big As Texas In 1988.