105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY THURSDAY June 3, 1999 Volume 105 • Issue 146 • 6 Pages College Station, Texas today’s issue Campus 2 News 6 Battalion Radio Tune in to 90.9 KAMU-FM at 1:57 p.m. for details about this months Texas Music Festival. opinion • Sensationalism, community involvement among issues facing today’s media. PAGES I Crash of Flight 1420 American Airlines Flight 1420, a Super MD-80, crashed at Little Rock National Airport just before midnight, killing at least nine people. Direction of wind Q Thunderstorm hits as plane arrives. Q Plane touches down and skids along the rain-slickened runway. ? H Plane slams into the raised approach lights and stops after rotating 150 degrees. Fuselage splits open on impact A and catches fire, y Smoke and y— Approach lights Little Rock National Airport Plane not to scale The weather factor Hail and winds gusting up to 87 mph hit the airport just as the plane is landing. Arkansas River Weather blamed for crash Source: Flight Guide, Airport and Frequency Manual AP/Wm. J. Gastello LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An American Airlines flight with 145 people aboard skidded off a runway while landing during a gusty hail storm, broke apart and burst into flames. Three sources familiar with the investigation said nine people were known to have been killed. The deaths in the crash, which occurred just before midnight Tuesday, were the first on a ma jor U.S. airline in nearly 1 1/2 years. After sliding down the rain-slickened runway in winds gusting to nearly 90 mph, the twin-en gine Super MD-80 slammed into a steel light tower, split into pieces, caught fire and wound up on the edge of the Arkansas River. As flames spread through the plane, some passengers squeezed one by one through an emergency exit while others escaped through openings created when the plane’s fuselage fractured. They scrambled away from the plane across lowlands near the river in darkness, rain and hail. “We grabbed each other and ran away,” Mis sy Lewis, who was traveling with her husband and teen-age daughter, said. Sources familiar with the investigation said authorities could account for nine deaths in the crash of Flight 1420 from Dallas. The plane’s captain was among those who died and its first officer had a broken leg, said Aggie Band leader among injured BY VERONICA SERRANO The Battalion Texas Aggie Band Direc tor Lt. Col. Ray E. Toler was injured when an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Little Rock, Ark., crashed while landing during a hail storm Hiesday night. Toler, who made the trip to Little Rock to visit his TOLER son, is being treated at Baptist Memorial Center in North Little Rock. A press release from University Relations said Toler was in an intensive care unit and has sustained a broken arm and possible internal injuries. Officials at Baptist Memorial said Wednes day evening that Toler was in satisfactory condition. Toler, who conducted bands during his ca reer in the Air Force, became the fourth di rector of the Aggie Band in 1989 since the ti tle was created in 1924. Bob Baker, the airline’s executive vice president of flight operations. One flight attendant had a broken leg and another had hip or pelvic prob lems. Two others were not injured. At least 83 people were injured and taken to hospitals. Fifty-one others did not require hos pital treatment. Two people were not immedi ately accounted for. “You don’t know if anyone on impact was thrown into the swamp,’’ American Airlines spokesperson John Hotard said. Barrett Baber, a student at Ouachita Baptist University at Arkadelphia, said the plane made a fast approach to the airport as lightning raged. Hail pelted him once he got out, he said. “The plane was going so fast, when we hit the ground, we went off the end of the runway,” Baber said at a theater-aerospace museum near the airport where survivors were taken to meet with families and friends. “We hit a huge pole, and it split the plane in half. A fire started at the front of the plane and spread back.” NEWS IN BRIEF otl - University to unveil Vision 2020 plan ■ Texas A&M University will for mally unveil Vision 2020, its con cept for attaining status as one of tie top-10 public universities by the jfear2020, Friday at Reed Arena. The unveiling comes after two /ears of planning and a year of work ' a 260-member task force. lUvBThe Vision 2020 study was initi- TjSftd by Texas A&M President Ray 4. Bowen and Jon L. Hagler, a part- pr in a Boston-based investment Bn and Class of ’68. B At the event, Bowen and Hagler vil explain what the report’s find- entwillt n g s anc j recommendations mean if t he or A&M and Texas. 6 Aggies selected in 1999 MLB Draft 3 arty: 82 jmFronts Six members of the Texas A&M anistPartyjBseball Team were selected in this r^iek’s 1999 Major League Base- *” J t )ill Draft. ly whit/ Junior pitcher Chance Caple was :ed the wen in the first round (30th overall) mg theBthe St. Louis Cardinals. ■ The righthander has compiled an a proBiiwl record this year with a 4.21 ERA. lationa Fellow junior pitcher Casey Fbssum partheiiffls selected by the Boston Red Sox g it of n the second round with the 48th ot bonverall pick. ogized Also drafted were senior first base- teleziJman John Scheschuk (232nd - San InkathaDpgo), senior catcher Shawn Schu- media macher (252nd - St. Louis), junior out- I wasf helder Steven Truitt (424th - Milwau- iwhileikJe) and junior shortstop Steve ANC Scarborough (544th - Milwaukee). Student Senate looks at parking, evaluation BY CARRIE BENNETT The Battalion The 1999-2000 parking arrangements, changes in the stu dent evaluations of instructors and prerequisites for upper-level classes were among the topics dis cussed by Student Senate at its first meeting of the summer. Brian Minyard, speaker of the senate and senior biochemistry major, said the senate will look into the Faculty Senate’s decision to change entry requirements for 300- and 400- level classes for Cat alog 123. Minyard said when a new 300- or 400-level course is created or reviewed, prerequisites may be added which will affect the Class of 2004 and could possibly affect current students who want to change majors. “[For example] if a freshman wants to take a 300-level political science course they can now, but if this [change in entry require ments] goes into effect then they won’t be able to,” Minyard said. Student Body President Will Hurd said the Academic Opera tions Committee is also consid ering changing the application date for incoming freshman from March 1 to Feb. 1 and from April 1 to March 1 for transfer stu dents. “U.T. [students] got their ac ceptance letters back a month ear lier than we did,” Hurd said. “This change will make A&M more competitive.” Minyard said the senate will also be working to change the for mat of student evaluations of in structors by creating a package that would include course syllabi, teacher evaluations and grade dis tributions in the evaluation. He said the change would in clude creating short-essay evalu ations, instead of relying on mul tiple-choice evaluation forms in order to get a better idea of the in structors’ abilities. “This process will help to screen out students that are fail ing, who are bitter about their grade and might not give an ac curate report of the professor’s teaching abilities,” Minyard said. Senator Peter Schulte, senior business administration major, said the parking map for the 1999- 2000 school year will be finalized soon. He said the faculty will no longer have assigned parking spots, but will instead have their own parking lot. “There will not be numbered 24-hour reserved parking spots next year,” Schulte said. “The spots will be turned into reserved lots which will be used on a first- come, first-serve basis.” Schulte said the gravel lots by Reed Arena will be expanded for more parking, and construction on the new parking garage on West Campus will begin in No vember. jjNew assistant provost takes post BY RYAN WEST The Battalion III Tllis week marl