European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 19, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Sunday february 19, 1989 the stars and stripes Page 3 Britain urges passenger equipment Check London a Britain recommended saturday that All airlines using its airports examine equipment carried by passengers following the announcement that a bomb hidden in a radio cassette player destroyed pan am flight 103. British airways the country s largest airline immediately started checking radios portable computers cassette players and other equipment being checked in said an airline spokesman who by British custom is not identified. The department of transport said it sent a directive outlining the suggestion to All airlines operating in Britain on Friday a Day after investigators said they believe the cassette player bomb was in checked bag Gage. Passengers at British airways counters saturday were asked to take All electrical and electronic equip ment out of their suitcases for a separate Security Check the airline spokesman said. Afterwards passengers were asked to carry them aboard the plane As hand baggage he said. A department of transport spokesman said the directive did not recommend How the items should be carried on the plane once they were cleared. He said the directive was aimed mainly at Battery operated transistor radios Lap top computers and Cas Sette recorders where explosives could be hidden rather than smaller items such As hair dryers. But the final decision on what should be checked would be left to the airline he said. At last week s meeting in Montreal of the International civil aviation organization s governing Council British transport Secretary Paul Channon outlined an eight Point program to increase airline Security including checks on electrical equipment the spokesman said. The aviation organization unanimously adopted a Resolution calling for a worldwide tightening of Securi getting a laugh from Art the artist May be getting the last Laughon spectators at an Avant Garde exhibition at the China Art gallery in Bei Jing. The chinese government in an unusual move had allowed the exhibition to open last week Only to shut it Down after a sculptor who emptied a by gun into her artwork caused a riot. Authorities later reopened the Art display. Human error suspected in azores crash new York a investigators probing the crash of an american oper ated Jet in the azores last week Are focus ing on poor radio communications com pounded by human error said a report published saturday. Tape recordings of conversations be tween the pilots and flight controllers indicate the pilots believed they had been cleared to descend to 2,000 feet when in fact the controllers had said 3,000 feet the new York times reported. In addition the controllers apparently gave the Crew an incorrect barometric set Ting for the Jet s altimeter. The newspaper cited unidentified informants who said that would have accounted for an addition Al 300-foot error and May have made the difference Between life and death. If the plane had remained at 2,000 feet or above it would have cleared the 1,936-foot Peak where the crash occurred the newspaper said. The chartered Boeing 707 leased by Independent air holdings of Smyrna Tenn. Was carrying 137 italian tourists and a Crew of seven to the Caribbean. It was preparing to land for refuelling at the Santa Maria Airport feb. 8 when it crashed into the Mountain the Island s highest. There were no survivors. The Santa Maria Airport does not have sophisticated radar that tells controllers a plane s Altitude. The investigation is focusing on Why the pilots would have accepted the order to descend to 2,000 feet when they had not reached the Point where they would begin a series of turns before Landing. Official navigation charts for the area set 3,000 feet As the minimum Altitude for planes approach ing the azores the newspaper said. A Sease Freak no roof would roam human body Tokyo a japanese scientists have begun developing a tiny robot to move inside the human body to treat diseased tissue a professor says. The scientists Hope to produce a robot that can transmit its location and find Ings and can Cut or otherwise treat Dis eased parts said Iwao Fujimasa of Tokyo University s research Center for advanced science and technology. Researchers for Many years have sent probes to study the oceans and outer space. We Hope to be Able to study the inner world Fujimasa said. Fujimasa an artificial heart specialist said the goal is a robot less than 0.04 inches in size that would be Able to travel through veins and inside organs. The project will require that the Small est available parts such As motors gears and screws be reduced to about one thousandth their present size he said. Even with a robot that size the team will need to study How to minimize prob lems created by its presence in the body such As blocking blood flow Fujimasa said. Fujimasa said Japan s High level of semiconductor manufacturing technology which is capable of producing components less than 1 Micron a thousandth of a millimetre in size would Aid the project. To including possible restrictions on carrying electrical and electronic devices on planes. The Montreal meeting was requested by Channon and . Transportation Secretary Samuel k. Skinner to consider International responses to the dec. 21 bombing of pan am flight 103. All 259 people aboard the new York bound Boeing 747 were killed along with 11 people in the scottish town of Lockerbie where much of the wreckage fell. While the Council was meeting detective chief superintendent John Orr the head of the International investigation into the pan am crash told a news con Ference thursday that the bomb had been planted in a radio cassette player checked As baggage. Anti terrorist experts have said the explosive most Likely used was semtex an odourless highly malleable substance made in Czechoslovakia. Orr said there was insufficient evidence to pinpoint the identity of the person or group responsible for planting the bomb. Bolt inspection threatened Nasa flight Washington a Nasa was forced to impound thousands of bolts and examine every Fastener on the space shuttle after inspectors discovered last year that manufacturers were faking certification tests for the hardware a space Agency official said Friday. Jim Ehl Nasa s Deputy associate administrator for the office of safety reliability maintainability and Quality Assur Ance said an extensive audit of the bolts used on the shuttle almost delayed the launch last september of the first Post challenger spaceflight. It threatened the launch schedule said Ehl. It took thousands of Man hours. It was an exhaustive search. It had a really big  faulty bolts were discovered last year by the Nasa inspector general s office in spot checks of fasteners that had been certified by manufacturers he said. Some bolts actually were removed from the discovery the shuttle used in the first Post challenger flight but Ehl said none of them was in systems critical to the spacecraft safety. We had to change out some fasteners on the vehicle itself said Ehl. We determined that none of them were in a place that would have caused a catastrophic failure. Had any of the fasteners failed we could have damage in local areas but not a catastrophic  the audit of the bolts he said did not uncover very Many with major mechanical flaws but there were some that did not meet precise specifications. There were no Gross things said Ehl. A lot of the problem was such things As improper paper work. The manufacturer was cheating a Little bit on the process of certifying equipment even though Only a few questionable bolts were found on the shuttle he said thousands of others stored were removed from the inventory and impounded. Every Nasa Center and most of our manufacturers do have fasteners that they Are holding that Are not certified or up to strength said Ehl. A few thou Sand Are in that kind of  the official said the Nasa inspector general does have Legal action under Way against manufacturers and he declined to name the companies. There was no answer late Friday at the office of the Nasa inspector general. In a Story prepared for publication on monday space business news an Arlington va., newsletter said that the Nasa inspector general s office found that fasteners supplied to the Mashall space flight Center in Alabama were improperly certified by at least six sup pliers. The publication said that the companies Are under investigation and have been blacklisted by Nasa contractors. Ehl said the bolts impounded by Nasa Are being saved for