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Tuesday, September 3, 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Bomb-proof planes will have high price
Safer planes will cost more but hold less
The Associated Press
MIAMI — A bomb explodes, severely damaging one wing of a passenger plane, but an on-board computer immediately adjusts the engine thrust and flaps and the jet lands safely.
On another aircraft, flames erupt in the cargo hold. Because of a special foam insulation, the fire is contained and all lives are saved.
The technologies that will allow planes to resist such catastrophies are already in testing and could be available by decade's end. But they won't come cheap. To offer safer flights, airlines may have to sacrifice valuable cargo space and pay top dollar.
"The bottom line is cost...but what we are really talking about is protecting the flying public," said
William Hassler of Galaxy Scientific Corp., an Atlantic City, N.J., company that makes luggage containers it says are bomb-proof.
The Clinton administration is urging faster approval of safety inventions since the July 17 explosion of TWA Flight 800 off New York's Long Island and, two months earlier, the Valulet disaster in the Florida Everglades. In late July, President Clinton directed his new Aviation Safety and Security Commission to make recommendations on airline security, air-traffic modernization and oversight of aviation safety by early September.
The commission chairman, Vice President Al Gore, promised swift patent consideration for devices that improve safety.
"One thing is clear: New technology is giving terrorists new opportunities," Gore said. "We need to make sure that those fighting terrorism can keep pace, with the best tools available."
Airline officials are skittish about discussing the new technologies, especially the high costs. A security scanner that can detect plastic
"We could have saved lives. I could have given them 25 minutes to land the plane."
Milton Torres Engineering Professor
explosives is being tested in Atlanta and San Francisco. Each machine costs more than $1 million.
Much of the progress being made in aviation security stems from recent tragedies:
The new luggage containers aim to withstand bombs stronger than the one that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
When the hydraulic controls failed on a DC-10 in 1989, a United Airlines pilot compensated by manipulating engine speed and fuel flow. Although 112 people died during an emergency landing at Sloux City, Iowa, 184 survived. NASA said its neural net computer program performs similarly, with the ability to compensate for different catastrophes.
A Miami researcher has developed a new spray-on foam he believes may strengthen old metal, resist fire and even contain explosions when applied inside the fuse-lage.
Milton Torres, an engineering professor at Florida International University, began his work in 1988 after the roof of an aging Aloha Airlines 737 ripped off, sucking a flight attendant out to her death.
Torres said his creation, a liquid polymer he calls PantherSkin, can lengthen a plane's life by slowing the development and spread of cracks and fissures.
Investigators believe ValuJet Flight 592 was brought down by fire after oxygen canisters exploded in
the cargo hold. Investigators estimated temperatures reached 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit; Torres said PantherSkin can withstand 3,000 degrees.
"We could have saved lives," Torres said. "I could have given them 25 minutes to land the plane. All they had was six or seven."
The plane, which had just left Miami International Airport, was about 15 miles from the nearest airport. Opa Locka.
The chief drawback to Panther-Skin and similar products is the difficulty of retrofitting planes. The spray-on polymer adds appreciable weight — Torres and the FAA disagree on how much — and would tend to embed control lines in the foam.
Another invention is the bombproof luggage container.
Three versions are being pursued:
One totally contains the blast, a second vents it out a panel in the side of the plane, and the third vents the force of the blast into surrounding containers.
Galaxy Scientific makes the last version with a hybrid aluminum and
fiberglass. Its containers were tested by the FAA and withstood blast forces larger than those that brought down Pan Am 103, company representative Hassler said.
The most sophisticated safety advancement under development is the computer being tested by NASA and McDonnell Douglas Corp. The computer, by learning from every experience, allows a plane to adapt to drastically altered situations.
The software is being tested with a modified F-15 fighter jet that can simulate the drag from a gaping hole in the fuselage or a torn-off portion of a wing.
In less than a second, the software adjusts engine thrust, hydraulics and stabilizers to keep the plane flying so the pilot can land.
"It behaves a little like a bird would if it was injured," NASA computer scientist Chuck Jorgensen said.
"The bird would use anything it has left to compensate," he said. "We would like to give people as much of a chance as we can — and not just against terrorists but in any accident."
Quick LOOK At the World POLITICS RELATIONS COMMERCE MILITARY WARS
Oil sales freeze in Iraq
The Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Oil prices rose sharply yesterday as the United Nations delayed Iraq from resuming oil sales, in response to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's attack on a U.N.-policed safe haven in northern Iraq this weekend.
At London's International Petroleum Exchange, North Sea Brent Blend crude oil settled at $21.99 a barrel, up $1.21. U.S. financial markets were closed for Labor Day.
"Oil prices will remain strong well into next year if the freeze on Iraqi oil remains and OPEC countries do
not raise their production levels," said Leo Drollas, deputy-director of the Center for Global Energy Studies in London.
Analysts predicted prices would climb to $21 a barrel. A barrel's average price, measured by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, has been about $19 in 1996. $17 in 1995 and $15.5 in 1994.
Brent crude futures usually trade at prices somewhat higher than the basket OPEC uses in calculating average oil prices.
OPEC revenues will increase by about $2 billion during this year's last quarter if the freeze continues.
Saudi Arabia, the largest producer of the 11-member cartel, would benefit most. Dollars said.
In June, OPEC members agreed to maintain an overall production quota of 25.033 million barrels a day, but actual daily production is estimated at 25.6 million barrels. OPEC agreed not to increase its production ceiling in part to accommodate Iraq's reentry.
The United Nations said Sunday it would delay their deal that allowed Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil during six months to buy food and medicine for its people, hard-hit by six years of U.N. trade sanctions.
Gulf War logs incomplete
The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Persian Gulf War military troops omit eight days when troops destroyed a cache of Iraqi chemical weapons that the Pentagon only recently acknowledged existed, The Birmingham News reported Sunday.
Gulfwatch, a watchdog group of Gulf veterans, called the omission further evidence of a military coverup of Gulf War Syndrome, an unexplained alliment many veterans claim they contracted during the war.
The logs were compiled for Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf to assess on a regular basis the threat of chemical weapons in the 1991 war.
Entries are missing for March 4 to 11, the week troops and engineers spent examining the Kamisiyah ammunition depot and blowing it up, the newspaper reported.
"That's the time Kanisiyah was done in," Guwfatch Jim Brown said. "All that critical information is missing."
The Pentagon acknowledged last week it has known since November 1991 that chemical weapons such as
nerve gas were stored at the depot. But it claims it had no idea U.S. troops were involved in the depot's destruction.
Pentagon representative Maj. Bruce Fitch said Monday that no one could comment on the log gap until today.
About 150 troops arrived at the Kamisiyah depot on March 4 to assess its contents and what it would take to destroy it, Brown said.
Several gaps exist in the 36 pages of logs that were declassified and turned over to Gulfwatch.
Rich greek bears unique gift
Fraternity alumnus builds dream house
The Associated Press
PULLMAN, Wash.—It's the fraternity house of the future, without a single toga in sight. Instead, it's rife with high-speed computers, cyberspace jacks and rooms with individual climate controls.
Greek Row may never be the same, thanks to the largess of billionaire Paul Allen.
Allen spent $3.1 million to build a new house for Phi Kappa Theta at Washington State University in southeastern Washington. He was a member of the fraternity in the early 1970s before dropping out of WSU to join boyhood friend Bill Gates, a Harvard dropout, in founding a profitable little business known as Microsoft.
"This house is a spearhead into the 21st century," said Phil Hauck, president of the local Phi Kappa Theta chapter. "We're wired up to the world."
The place was packed at the start of Rush Week in late August, when WSU's 41 fraternities and sororites recruit new members from incoming students.
The four-story, red-brick house,
with white trim, large windows
and a white cupola on the roof, evokes college buildings of the past. But inside it is strictly the future:
—Each double bedroom has built-in jacks to transmit voice, data and cable television and link its occupants to all of cyberspace.
—Each room has a multi-line telephone system that includes an intercom. "We're still trying to figure out how it works," Hauck said.
—it's the only fraternity house on campus with an elevator, making it accessible to the disabled.
The computer center contains six Gateway 2000 Pentium computers, available on a first-come basis.
—Each room has an individual climate control system, which also provides the outside temperature so members know what to wear on a given day.
—The parking lot is heated to ward off ice in Pullman's chilly winters.
—The lighted outdoor basketball court features logos of the Portland Trail Blazers, the professional basketball team Allen owns. There is a built-in barbecue pit.
A guest bedroom, called the Allen Room, is set aside for visiting alumni.
The 17,500-square-foot house,
with a big-screen television and a pool table, will house 52 people in room twice as large as those in other WSU fraternity houses. But the monthly room and board of $425 is lower than most because Allen donated the building, and there is no mortgage to pay, Hauck said.
The fraternity fell on hard times in 1979 when its old stucco house was condemned as a fire trap. The structure was eventually torn down and the chapter was defunct until 1982, when a fraternity member from another college transferred to WSU and sought to revive it. The national organization awarded WSU a charter last year.
Then Allen got involved. To give something back, he bought the original lot and broke ground for the new house on the same site.
"I never thought it would be this good," said Mark Blewett, founding member of the new chapter. He graduated last year and now tests software for Microsoft. He was back in the house last month helping members move in.
Damon Hahn was sitting in the computer center, playing a CD-ROM game called Command and Conquer.
"I plan to spend a lot of time here," Hahn said.
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