STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Sopranos fanatics, this one is for you. Tony Soprano's autographed Suburban is available for purchase on eBayTM. James Gandolfini has personally signed the vehicle. Find this and over 800 other Sopranos items for sale on eBay. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- U.S. F-16 plane crashes in eastern Turkey DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, July 18 (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force F-16 warplane on its way to patrol the skies over northern Iraq crashed in mountainous eastern Turkey on Wednesday, highlighting the growing dangers faced by pilots enforcing a "no-fly zone." Fear of technical failure bringing down a patrol aircraft in northern Iraq has haunted the United States and Britain since "Operation Northern Watch" was launched some 10 years ago. Recently, that danger has been compounded by improved Iraqi air defences. A U.S. military spokesman at the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey identified the F-16 pilot as First Lieutenant Michael A. Nelson Jr of 510 Fighter Squadron. The pilot had ejected before the crash, near the city of Batman, and was uninjured. He was taken to Incirlik and a team of investigators from the base had gone to the crash site, the spokesman said. The Turkish Armed Forces General Staff said the cause of the crash was engine failure. Batman is 80 miles (130 km) from the Iraqi border. "At the time of the accident the aircraft was en route to a mission enforcing the northern no-fly zone over Iraq," the U.S. spokesman said, reading from a statement. "The aircraft was assigned to Operation Northern Watch. Its home base was Aviano air base, Italy," he said. U.S. and British warplanes enforce a no-fly zone set up over a Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. The aircraft usually fly from Incirlik, a Turkish air base jointly run by Turkey and the United States. Pilots report they are coming under fire from Iraqi defences with increasing frequency. Iraq often claims to have hit a U.S. plane but no such claim has yet been substantiated. Had the U.S. Air Force aircraft come down in northern Iraq, the United States would have implemented a well-prepared rescue operation for the pilot. The prospect of a U.S. airman falling into Iraqi hands is particularly alarming to Washington. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pointed to the dangers during a recent visit to Incirlik. "We've been very fortunate that we've not had a loss," he said. "Is it conceivable that there could be one at some point? Certainly it is possible." 07:48 07-18-01 ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
