Copyright 1987
U.P.I.
United
Press International January 21, 1987, Wednesday, PM cycle
SECTION:
Domestic News
LENGTH: 618
words
BYLINE: By
TONI CARDARELLA, United Press International
BODY: An
Army brigadier general was among five people killed in the crash of a
military plane and a private craft in sunny skies over Missouri, one of
two reported airplane collisions Tuesday, and authorities said they
feared another victim might be found. In the other incident, two small
planes brushed each other near a Rhode Island airport but landed
safely, officials said. Seven people aboard the two craft walked away
unhurt.
Brig. Gen. David Stem, commander of the Military Police School at Fort
McClellan, Ala., was one of three people on the Army plane that
collided with a Piper Navaho with two or three people aboard about
12:30 p.m. CST Tuesday at 7,000 feet over Independence, Mo., an Army
spokesman said. The debris fell on the grounds of a privately owned
ammunition plant 45 miles southeast of Fort Leavenworth, Kan., but did
not hit any buildings, and there were no injuries on the ground, Maj.
Bill Auer said. The military plane, a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air
based with its crew at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, was on its way
to Fort Leavenworth. The private plane was flying from Kansas City to
St. Louis, but authorities knew few details about it. A report from a
friend of one of those killed on the private plane said she believed
three people were in it, instead of two. Authorities said neither of
the people known to be in it were pilots and began investigating
whether it might have carried three people.
Dr. Bonita Peterson, the Jackson County medical examiner, today said
one of the victims in the civilian plane was Rocky Swyres, 39, of St.
Louis, who was returning to St. Louis from a one-day business trip to
Kansas City. Peterson said the name of the second victim was being
withheld until police could contact the family. Fort Leavenworth
spokesman Lt. Col. John Garlinger said Stem was the only passenger on
the military plane, but added that positive identification of the
remains had not been made. The pilot was identified as Maj. Michael
Johnston, of Alexandria, Ala. The plane also carried a civilian
co-pilot who was not identified.
FAA spokeswoman Sandra Campbell said controllers at Kansas City
International Airport were tracking the military plane when it
disappeared from radar. It was not known if controllers had contact
with the private plane. Garlinger said the Missouri crash was being
investigated by teams from the U.S. Army Safety Center at Fort Rucker,
Ala., the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board. Military
police stood guard over the wreckage today while investigators studied
the debris at the Lake City Ammunition Plant in a rural area of
Independence. Garlinger said ''the bigger pieces'' went down in three
separate places.
It was the second fatal in-flight collision in five days. On Jan. 15 a
small private plane collided with a Skywest commuter plane over
suburban Salt Lake City, killing all 10 people aboard both craft. A
short time before Tuesday's crash in Missouri, seven people walked away
unhurt when a Piper Cherokee commuter flight leaving Westerly Airport
''brushed'' a private Piper Archer from Stratford, Conn., at about
1,700 feet over Westerly, R.I. ''You'd have to say the people are
lucky,'' said William Bendokas, president of New England Airlines,
which operated the commuter flight that was carrying five passengers
and a pilot. Both planes landed safely at Westerly, and only the
four-seat private plane was damaged in the 10:50 a.m. EST accident,
said Gene Tansey, the Rhode Island airports director. The airport, in
southwestern Rhode Island on the Connecticut border, has no air traffic
control facilities. ''It could be a no-fault situation, a freak
incident,'' Bendokas said.