The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 1

HE CINCINNATI EMIIIR JUI A GANNETT NEWSPAPER FINAL EpiTIONNEWSSTAND PRICE 25t FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1983 ie In Burning Air Canada Jet Smoke Engulfed Cabin In Midair 4 at Atf-oiinwii -i if jot BY ENQUIRER STAFF Passengers on the Air Canada DC-9 from Dallas to Toronto were somewhere over Kentucky when they found out thetr twin-engine jet was on fire. Fifteen minutes later, at 7:23 p.m. Thursday, 23 of them were dead and the rest were struggling to get out of the flaming wreckage. In the early hours of this morning, no one yet knew why. The twin-engine jet, on a run from Dallas to Toronto, was still burning when it was directed to Runway 27-Left at 7:23 p.m.

Some passengers escaped unharmed or with minor Injuries, but the 23 killed were trapped inside. By 11 p.m., only four of the bodies had been removed from the plane. Investigators were trying to identify the rest by seat location, an airport security officer said. "PEOPLE WERE scattered around like they were trying to get out," said Tom Spille, a member of the Crescent Springs Fire Department. "The top half of the plane had melted.

The plane was gutted out," he said. A crash victim, Glenn Davis, 42, of Toronto, said from his hospital bed, "You couldn't help but inhale the smoke. It started in the back of the plane. I feel fine. It was one of those things.

Some of us got out, some didn't." Air Canada spokesman John Wardall told a press conference in Toronto late Thursday that "some of the crew are dead." He said an Air Canada team from Montreal would come to Cincinnati to investigate but said the cause of the on-board fire would not be known for a while. Airport board member. Jerry Strieker said most of the bodies were found in the front of the plane. The passengers were probably trying to get away from the fire in the rear of the plane, Strieker said. STRICKER SAID the pilot' radioed Cincinnati he could not see because of smoke in the cockpit.

"It was amazing the pilot was able to land the way he did." The pilot and co-pilot escaped by crawling out a cockpit window, a fire of ficial said. Officials from the Kenton and Boone county coroners' offices were on the scene and set up a temporary morgue at the airport. Boone County Coroner Don Stith was in charge of the process of removing the bodies from the plane and determining cause of death. The identities of the dead were not immediately known. There was confusion last night over where in the plane the fire started, but apparently It started in a restroom in the rear of the plane.

Some early reports said the fire was in a restroom behind the front door where the crew usually stays. (See PLANE, back of this section) fjftwf r- AP Laserphoto BY AL BEHRMAN FIREFIGHTERS WORK on the burning fuselage of Air Canada Flight 797 after the Dallas-Toronto flight made an emergency landing at Greater Cincinnati International Airport. Twenty-three persons perished. The Final Minutes Of Flight 797 Chalifoux praised the way the crew handled the situation. "There was no panic at all," he said.

"The crew did a super Job of keeping it under control." HE SAID that when the plane made its emergency landing, the crew directed passengers out through emergency doors over the wings and the emergency chute in the front of the plane. He said crew members explained to passengers the proper way to breathe. Chalifoux said passengers did not use oxygen masks because the pilot told them that oxygen could have fed the flames. "I could breathe the whole time by putting a hand over my mouth," Chalifoux said. "The pilot told us, 'Another 15 seconds and that would have been it for all of What went through Chalifoux's mind? "There were flames.

What do you think when there are flames on a plane?" On The Inside. Relatives learn of survivors' fate. Page C-l Grim scene at the morgue, PageC-1 Anxious wait in Toronto, Page C-1 Witness describes fiery landing. Page C-1 Chronology of the flight. Page C-3 List of injured.

Page C-3. Past air crashes. Page C-3 DC-9 history, Page C-3. NTSB "Go Team" en Page C-3. a flight attendant opened the door smoke came billowing out.

Chalifoux said that when she closed the door the smoke in the passenger compartment was reduced, but within minutes the smoke was heavier than it had been. HE SAID crew members attempted to douse the fire with extinguishers, but were unsuccessful. "They told us not to worry," he said. "After a while we realized there was something wrong." Five minutes before landing, Chalifoux said, "you couldn't see a damn thing in -there." Chalifoux said passengers in his area of the plane could not see flames until Just before the plane touched down. He said the crew told passengers to move to the front of the plane and ordered passengers to remain away from the sides.

Chalifoux said he believed that was because the crew feared the wings or the sides of the plane could catch fire. BY JEFF GUTSELL Enquirer Reporter "Five minutes before landing we couldn't see anything in the plane for the smoke," said Raymond Chalifoux, 23, a passenger on Air Canada Flight 797. Chalifoux, a pollution-control engineer, was bound for his home In Montreal and was to make plane connections in Toronto. He had attended a business meeting In San Antonio, "Texas. Chalifoux said he was traveling with a business associate whom he believes may have died in the fire along with 22 others Thursday night.

AFTER THE plane made Its emergency landing at Greater Cincinnati International Airport after a fire started in a restroom, Chalifoux was taken to St. Elizabeth Medical Center for observation. He was later released. Before leaving the hospital for an area motel, Chalifoux recounted his experience. He said passengers noticed the smell of smoke coming from a restroom.

He said that 1 UC Medical Center Entering Test-Tube Baby Business President Names Salvadoran Envoy as the administration confirmed plans to send about two dozen medical specialists to El Salvador to assist in treatment of growing numbers of both military and civilian casualties in the fighting against leftist insurgents. In El Salvador, the administration's new special envoy for the entire Central American region, Richard Stone, arrived on his first full day on the Job. After two days of exploratory talks there, he will head for Costa Rica and several other nations in the region, including Nicaragua, before returning to Washington. Stone had no comment when he stepped from an Air Force plane at Ilopango Air Base, but an embassy spokesman said Stone had come "to get to know the people of the region." PRESIDENT REAGAN, upon departing for a long weekend at the Camp David presidential re- BY RUDY ABRAMSON 1983, Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON-President Reagan on Thursday picked career foreign service officer Thomas R. Pickering, 51, to be the new U.S.

ambassador to war-torn El Salvador. Pickering was named to succeed Deane R. Hinton in a shake-up that began last week with the ouster of Thomas O. Enders as the State Department's top expert on Latin America. CURRENTLY THE U.S.

ambassador to Nigeria, Pickering has little Latin American experience. But he was described as highly regarded within the State Department because of his performance in a number of sensitive posts, including a four-year stint as the U.S. ambassador to Jordan. His nomination, subject to Senate approval, was, announced. In vitro fertilization Involves removing eggs from the ovary, growing them in a laboratory dish to make sure they are normal, fertilizing them with sperm, then implanting them In the woman's uterus within 36 hours.

It has been an alternative for women whose fallopian tubes are damaged or somehow prevent the normal monthly movement of the egg from the ovary to the uterus. Owens said it also can be used if a man has a low sperm count. The controlled laboratory setting makes fertilization possible even though the number of sperm in the semen is lower than normal. SOME COUPLES are ineligible for the procedure, including women over the age of 40 because the chances of a successful pregnancy are very low. Most centers also require the couples to be married "because they are dedicated to the traditional structure of the family," the doctor said.

For that reason, the UC clinic also will not use surrogate mothers, he stressed. (Surrogate mothers have been used by some couples when the woman cannot bear a child. Another woman, or surrogate, bears the child and then gives it to the married couple once it is born. Many legal and moral implications have arisen with the phenomenon). The clinic will establish policy to limit the number of patients and determine how many times they can be eligible for the procedure, Owens said.

Nationwide, the inability to conceive children affects 15 -20 of all couples, and the number is growing because women are waiting longer to have children and lifestyles are changing, he said. WITH THE in vitro process, about 95 of the eggs can be fertilized by the sperm, but the success rate of those implanted eggs developing Into a single baby ranges from 5 to 20 Owens said. THOMAS PICKERING new ambassador treat, said of the plan to send medical personnel to El Salvador, "There is a great need for it, and I am doing this in consultation with Congress." (See LATIN, back of this section) BY SUE MacDONALD Enquirer Reporter 1983, The Cincinnati Enquirer Doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center soon will begin offering in vitro fertilization, the procedure that leads to test-tube babies, to couples who have been unable to bear children. In the coming weeks, the doctors will begin screening couples who are interested in pursuing the option of fertilizing a woman's egg with her husband's sperm In a laboratory dish and then implanting it in her uterus. "This is very exciting for us, for the university and for the city of Cincinnati," said Dr.

O'dell Owens, a specialist in reproductive endocrinology and the doctor who will head the multldlsclplinary clinic. OWENS AND other members of the obstetrics-gynecology department at UC will pursue in vitro fertilization as another component to the infertility counseling clinic. Owens, a native of Cincinnati, studied the test-tube process for 11 years at Harvard and Yale universities before returning to UC in 1982. He is the only certified specialist In reproductive endocrlology (the study of reproductive glands and their secretions) in Cincinnati. "There's going to be a tremendous proliferation of these clinics, but we're not going to get a proliferation of success unless the people involved are highly trained," the doctor said.

The members of the UC team will include Owens, Dr. Bruce Moulton, who specializes in the implantation of fertilized eggs in the uterus, and Dr. BettyDresser, a reproductive physiologist considered a national expert on in vitro fertilization, especially In animals. ALSO INVOLVED will be a doctor who specializes in the growth of the egg, an ultrasound specialist, a geneticist and a teratologist, one who studies the effects of drugs on growth and development. Index D-14 WORD GAME SPORTS RESULTS Telephone 369-1005 or 369-1006 Four Sections, 143rd Year, No.

55 EDITORIALS A-3 AROUND TOWN D-3 GARDEN BOGGLE P- HOROSCOPE D-U BRIDGE Ed5. HORSE RACING BUSINESS JUMBLE D-14 CLASSIFIED B-13, 14, C-7-16 METRO NEWS C-1-5 COLUMNISTS A-14, 15 PURDY B-T COMICS D-14 SPORTS B-l-8 CROSSWORD TEMPO D-l-16 DEARABBY D-2 TV-RADIO D-13 Showers and thunderstorms likely today, continuing into the evening. High 75 to 80, low 60 to 65. Mostly cloudy Saturday with a slight chance of showers. High near 75.

Weather map and details on Page A-2. (See BABY, back of this section) 1 J9BammaBa.