Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 10

REPUBLIC CITY Thursday, November 1, 1979 0 The Arizona Republic A21 I. 1 tV Airport officials and rescue workers in Mexico City search through the wreckage of a Western Airlines DC-10 after a pre-dawn crash. ABC's 'ace' producer dies en route to riots Lucoff, a bachelor, started in jour A foot protrudes from a pile of debris as rescue teams work quickly to uncover the body of a crash victim. Crash Continued from Al After an American Airlines DC-10 crashed on takeoff from O'Hare International Airport last May 25, killing 273 people, the 31-year-old Lucoff was assigned as field producer for the network's coverage. "In a conversation on Friday," Tiven recalled, "Lucoff said 'I have not flown a DC-10 since the crash in Chicago and I won't fly a DC-10 unless it's the only way I can get Lucoff, who was based here, originally was not supposed to go to El Salvador.

But ABC News called from New York late Tuesday and pulled him off an assignment for next week's Cleveland mayoral election, Tiven said. "He was really among our Latin American experts," said Ed Ilersh, a field producer based in Chicago. "When we needed fresh troops in El Salvador he was the obvious choice. He was generally regarded as one of the best and most resourceful field producers in the company." Associated Press CHICAGO Five months ago, ABC News field producer Ken Lucoff covered the worst airplane crash in American history and later said he never wanted to fly in a DC-10. Four months ago, he supervised ABC's coverage of the Nicaraguan revolution when newsman Bill Stewart was slain.

On Wednesday, he died on his way to cover rioting in El Salvador when a DC-10 crashed at the Mexico City-airport. "Lucoff was kind of our ace," Ken Tiven, ABC News bureau chief for the Midwest, said Wednesday. "One of the terrible ironies is that he did Nicaragua and it was his job to deal with the Bill Stewart killing and to deal with the Somoza officials and to get it all wrapped up in the ugly aftermath and to bring the body home." But it was far from the only irony. nalism as a reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel from 1966 to 1969. For the next two years he was a news writer for WTMJ in Milwaukee.

Then, after five years as NBC's bureau chief in Tel Aviv, Israel, Lucoff joined ABC as an assignment desk editor in Washington in June 1976. He became a field producer based in Chicago in June 1978. After returning from Nicaragua, Lucoff was field producer for ABC coverage of Pope John Paul IPs visit to Chicago in early October. "We have the sad irony that he was on his way back to Central America and he was killed In the plane crash in Mexico City," said Tiven. "He was what we call a combat news person.

He had been in places were they shoot at you and he was very good at what he did. "He was not only a good producer, he was a good pilot tried to go up again, but it was not possible so we turned right more and more, more dangerously, and Most of the survivors were found in a 20-foot-long section of fuselage that slid into a concrete hangar and did not catch fire, rescue workers said. Two airport workers who rushed to the scene said they rescued a man strapped to his seat and writhing in agony with a flaming piece of metal on his lap. Firemen and about 250 rescue workers sorted mangled bodies from the smoldering wreckage. Chunks of the plane, which was traveling at about 150 mph when it crashed, were scattered at least 500 yards arornd the main wreckage site.

The nose was buried in the wreckage of the Western maintenance building and one flaming chunk of wing flew over the post office building and landed on the roof of Alejandro Caballero's house near the airport. "I was asleep when I was awakened by a great noise," Caballero said. "I looked up and my house was in flames. My wife and children all got away safely, thanks to the Virgin of Guadalupe." One survivor, Eduardo Valencia, a steward who was in the rear of the plane, walked away from the crash without a scratch. Jorge Valencia, Western's Mexico City manager, said the plane was on a "Tecolote" flight an inexpensive night flight named after the Aztec word for owl.

Airport officials said the plane's "black box," which records flight exchanges, was recovered. 7,1, Srferri? wh M- SI then, a big explosion. "I closed my eyes and 1 tried to stay in my place. When I opened them.I saw a lot of fire, and I heard a lot of voices. I opened my seatbelt and came out of the plane." The Mexican Transportation Ministry said the pilot "tried to land on the wrong runway," clipped a truck, then headed for the correct runway to the right, but his right wingtip struck a building.

"It was definitely not structural; there's no question about that," FAA spokesman Dennis Feldman said in Washington in reference to the plane. He said the crash was caused by an approach-and-landing error. The crash was the fourth fatal accident involving a DC-10 in less than six years. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration dispatched experts to help Mexican officials investigate. Mexican sources said the plane was making an instrument approach on runway 23-right.

Runway 23-left has been closed for repairs since Oct. 19. The sources said that as the plane entered a fog bank, the tower asked whether it had the runway in sight. The pilot said he did not and began to pull up to circle for another approach. Part of the plane's landing gear and the destroyed truck containing the driver's body were found at the begin-ing of runway 23-left.

Two Western Airline officials who investigated the crash said they agreed with the Mexican Transportation Ministry's report. But some airport workers who witnessed the crash said the plane tried to land in the correct runway, 23-right, but pulled up for unknown reasons and veered to the right. A Braniff Airlines employee who witnessed the crash said it appeared the plane first touched down on the correct runway, then its engines were revved and it pulled up and veered to the right. Officials said the poor visibility played no role in the crash, though the airport's log showed that at 6 a.m. 16 minutes after the crash there was "zero visibility." ABC's Ken Lucoff Woman heard cries for help from airplane Associated Press MEXICO CITY "Everybody didn't die right away.

Some were trying to get out. Some of them they were crying 'Help, then they were either calm or something must have happened to them." Mrs. Pandora Dickersen Scott, 19, of Chico, told of the crash Wednesday of a Western Airlines DC-10 inbound from Los Angeles. Mrs. Scott said she spent about 30 minutes inhaling gases in the smoldering wreckage and pulling away rocks.

In an interview at the Centro Medico in Mexico City, Mrs. Scott said her lungs hurt and that her hands felt asleep. But she was discharged shortly afterward. we felt something hit the plane," she said. "Then everything was OK for about three minutes.

Then people started screaming and the plane hit something big like a building." She said the seat in front fell on top of her and then cement and rocks started pouring into the cabin on top of the seat. She said she removed some rocks from the pile to breathe better. "Something fell down like a tube or a broken pipe with gas like carbon monoxide," she said. "I was choking." Prtu Crowds mill around a section of the DC-10's wing after it landed on a' building in a slum area. seat which I learned was a fire.

But they quickly put it out." Mrs. Scott said she looked at the wreckage as rescue workers pulled her out and carried her away. "It looked like a star that had spread out on the ground, except for the back of it, it was a shambles." Also taken to the Centro Medico for She said she found a pillow and stuffed it on top of the pipe and waited to be rescued. "I heard them the rescue workers taking out the rocks," she said. "It was about half an hour later when I was pulled out.

"While I was pinned down, I saw a light about five feet away from my treatment was passenger Eddy Laven-ciana, 27, of Los Angeles. Mrs. Scott, a Fairbanks, Alaska, native, said she had come to Mexico to get her 4-month-old baby, Laida, who was born in Mexico, and take her back to the United States. Mrs. Scott said her sister, Deborah, lives in Alaska and her husband, Steven Scott, lives in Chico.

Capt. Charles Gilbert 1,000 flee Florida flood as dam bursts 50 killed, 30 hurt in tram accident Stock takes dip for DC-10 firm INEW YORK (UPI) McDonnell Douglas took a battering Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange in the wake of a Western Airlines DC-10 crash in Mexico City. McDonnell Douglas stock lost $1.75 a share to finish at $25.25 when trading closed. Western Airlines stock finished the day unchanged at $8.13 a share, i It was the second time this year the stock has come under selling pressure. The first time was after an American Airlines DC-10 crashed on takeoff from Chicago's O'Hare Airport on May 25, killing 273 persons in the nation's worst air disaster.

All DC-lOs were grounded from June 6 to July 13 for inspections. 'McDonnell Douglas stock has traded as high at $36.25 a share this year and reached a low of $20 a share after the Chicago tragedy. United Press International PORT MAYACA, Fla. An earthen power-company dam burst without warning Wednesday, loosing a flood wave that washed a railroad train off its tracks, inundated hundreds of homes and forced at least 1,000 persons to seek higher ground. Dozens of persons were rescued by helicop-.

ters and boats from the roofs of barns, houses and cars in a 60-square-mile area around northeast Lake Okeechobee, about 100 miles northwest of Miami. Authorities said no deaths or serious injuries were reported. "The water is still rising and spreading into new areas, and we don't expect it to crest until around 6 p.m. (4 p.m. Arizona time)," Ellie Waters, communications chief of Okeechobee County civil defense, said Wednesday.

"The reservoir is 15 feet deep, and we expect it to drain all the way down to ground level." Civil-defense officials said the swirling flood-waters caused damage estimated at $4.35 William Marrietta, who owns a 300-acre cattle ranch a mile from the reservoir, took a direct hit from the waters. "I woke up when my daughter screamed," Marrietta said. "When I got out of bed, the water was up to my knees." Marrietta, his wife and three children made their way from the house to a nearby barn, where they scrambled to the roof and shivered in the dark for five hours before being rescued by a helicopter. Marrietta said the water was chin-deep by the time his family reached the barn. "There are about 1,700 peoplt in the area that we have evacuated, and they will be out of their homes at least tonight, and some will be two days before they can get back to their homes," Waters said.

The dam was built by the Midvalley Construction Co. of Texas from dirt mixed with a small amount of concrete, the spokesman said. It is 150 feet wide at the base and 25 to 30 feet wide at the top. The depth of the reservoir ranges from 9 to 19 feet. They said at least 80,000 acre-feet of water were released when the dam broke at a Florida Power Light Co.

cooling reservoir near Indiantown before dawn. Okeechobee County Civil Defense Director Clyde E. Kauffman said 255 trailers, 62 homes, nine commercial buildings, 30 boathouses and a $125,000 motel at Upthegrove Beach were flooded. Authorities had no immediate explanation of what caused a 200-yard section of the dam to rupture. There was no warning of the dam break, and a power-company spokesman said engineers "have to determine the cause before we can find out why there was no warning." The first word of the dam break came at 1:47 a.m.

Wednesday (11:47 p.m. Tuesday, Arizona time) when a Florida East Coast Railway freight crew radioed it had been derailed by a flash flood near Port Mayaca. By daybreak, floodwaters 29 feet deep in some low-lying areas had covered an area of ranches and lakeside fishing resorts along a 20-mile stretch of the northeast shore of Lake Okeechobee between Port Mayaca and Nubbin Slough to the north. Associated Press DJIBOUTI A passenger train derailed and crashed on the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railroad about 44 miles south of this East African capital, killing 50 persons and seriously injuring 30, police reported Wednesday. The accident occurred on Tuesday just north of the Ethiopian border post of Ali Sabieh.

Most of the victims were returning to their homes to celebrate the Al Adha festival, a major Islamic holiday. Police said the injured were taken to civilian and military hospitals in Djibouti, capital of the former French territory that now has the same name as its capital. Rescuers still were cutting through the wreckage in a search for other passengers at night. Authorities were investigating the possibility that the accident was caused by sabotage to ttief ail line, which carries most of Ethiopia's exports'and imports to and from Djibouti's Red Sea harbor. A guerrilla movement opposed fto the Moslem-oriented government of President TTassan Gouled has long been active in rural areasj'of the former French colony in the Horn of Africa..