Further Signs of Stress

By Richard Stengel

In a summer of unprecedented air disasters, the Federal Aviation Administration was taking no chances. Investigators had discovered a crack in the airplane engine that caught fire on a Boeing 737 jet in Manchester, England, two weeks ago, causing an explosion and fire that killed 55 passengers. In reaction, the FAA ordered U.S. airlines to schedule inspections of all similar JT8D-15 airplane engines made by Pratt & Whitney, the nation's largest manufacturer of aircraft engines.

The widely used engine has previously been associated with midair aircraft emergencies: the National Transportation Safety Board has reported problems with the turbine disks on five occasions in the past two years. But at least two-thirds of the 1,000 commercial jets in the U.S. that use the JT8D-15 are already subject to stringent FAA-approved maintenance programs, and will not require further inspection under the order.

In Britain, however, the Civil Aviation Authority ordered a more wide-ranging inspection of the engines, grounding about 10% of the country's passenger fleet and causing flight delays of up to seven hours at the beginning of last week. British Airways announced that it had found engine problems similar to the one in the Manchester accident in four of its twelve Boeing 737s, but the airline's officials angrily denied an FAA allegation that the engine cracks were caused by operating the motors at excessively high temperatures. Still, many passengers are nervous. "People are making requests to sit near emergency exits, and there seems to be more than the normal level of cancellations," said one British Airways check-in clerk.

The FAA has also been looking for better ways to warn planes of violent wind shear, like the downdraft that caused a Delta L-1011 jet to crash near Dallas last month, killing 135. The FAA is proceeding with research into radar methods that can give better indications of wind shear. And in Tokyo, FAA officials, along with other U.S. experts, have gathered to assist in the investigation of the Aug. 12 crash of Japan Air Lines Flight 123, a Boeing 747 similar to many flown by U.S. carriers. A 60-page preliminary report released last week by Japan's Transport Ministry provided a dramatic transcript of voice recordings made during the doomed 45-minute flight of JAL 123. The report, however, failed to establish the cause of "the unusual impact" that crippled the vertical stabilizer and caused the plane to crash into a remote mountainside, killing 520 of the 524 people aboard.

"We might not be able to make it," says Pilot Masami Takahama, as his plane pitches and yaws out of control. "Hey, there's a mountain," he tells his crew at one point. In the passenger cabin, a flight attendant says, "Hold your babies tightly." The last words recorded: "Pull up! Pull up!" The tape ends with a crashing sound.

The Flight 123 disaster, the worst single-aircraft accident in history, may also go on record as the costliest-liability crash in aviation's annals; there are estimates that insurance payments will top $212 million. One reason for the huge damages, aside from the hundreds of fatalities, is the large number of well-to-do travelers who were aboard the commuter flight from Tokyo to Osaka. Victims of the crash included Japanese Pop Singer Kyu Sakamoto and 163 highly paid executives. Japan ended its search for the missing last week and began airlifting the wreckage of the plane to Tokyo for further inspection. Meanwhile, edgy passengers around the world hoped that the latest precautions would bring an end to a series of air tragedies.

No self-respecting drug dealer in South Florida would be without one. It fits inside the glove compartment of an Eldorado and can be worn in a shoulder holster under a Miami Vice linen jacket. The MAC-10 semiautomatic pistol is a little larger than a Colt .45, weighs a mere eight pounds and sells for $360 and up. Placing a small piece of plastic behind the trigger mechanism will convert it into an illegal automatic weapon that can spit out 1,200 rounds a minute. With a silencer attached, it is as quiet as a sewing machine humming in the next room.

These qualities have made the MAC the ultimate gangster's gun, a lethal status symbol for criminals around the country. Says Stephen Higgins, director of the Department of Treasury's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms: "The MAC-10 has become the weapon of choice for the nation's criminal element."

At least 35,000 semiautomatic MAC-10s, as well as its smaller, lighter cousin, the MAC-11, are in circulation across the U.S. Florida's Dade County, the nation's murder capital, is riddled with them. During a shootout last month at the posh Doral Hotel in Miami Beach, a drug dealer used an automatic MAC-10 to spray bullets at four outgunned policemen. The MAC has also turned up in the arsenals of radical extremist groups. One was used to murder Denver Talk Show Host Alan Berg in 1984; a member of a neo-Nazi gang has been charged with the crime. The MAC, says one federal drug-enforcement agent, is "good for one thing and one thing only: to kill people in large numbers."

Some experts dispute the merits of the MAC as an effective weapon. One law- enforcement official calls the short-barreled machine pistol "a piece of junk" that is difficult to control. Miami Police Officer Robert P. Davis, who has tested MACs, disagrees: "They are devastating in automatic form. They are like spraying water from a hose." The MAC-10 greatly outnumbers another gun favored by criminals, the compact Israeli-made UZI. That well-built weapon is more accurate, but it is more expensive at around $700 and far more complicated to convert to automatic firing. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms unintentionally gave the MAC a boost in the underworld in 1979 when it classified the gun as a semiautomatic weapon. The distinction was crucial: semiautomatic guns, which require a separate pull of the trigger for each bullet, can be purchased easily. Automatic weapons must be registered with local and federal authorities and their sale accompanied by fingerprints, certification by the law-enforcement agency and a $200 tax. Possessing an automatic weapon without proper registration is punishable by up to ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each count. Under the relaxed classification, criminals snapped up semiautomatic MAC-10s and quickly converted them into fully automatic machine guns.

Wayne and Sylvia Daniel, the MAC- 10's Georgia-based manufacturers, responded to the ATF decision with beefed-up advertising. The Daniels increased their sales from $1.1 million in 1979 to $4 million in 1981. Business collapsed when the Government reclassified the gun as an automatic weapon in 1982, but the Daniels got around the restriction by marketing a $300 MAC-10 kit that could be used to build a rapid-fire pistol with parts available from another company. In June a grand jury in Fresno, Calif., indicted the Daniels and two others on charges of conspiring to manufacture and market the parts for making illegal automatic weapons and silencers.

Although MAC sales are now regulated, the Government can do little about the thousands of guns sold under the old classification. Declaring that the MAC "serves no purpose except to kill people," Democratic Congressman Robert Torricelli of New Jersey has introduced legislation that would make it a crime to possess a readily convertible firearm such as the MAC-10. The National Rifle Association considers such legislation a restriction of constitutional rights, but groups like the National Coalition to Ban Handguns see it as imperative. Says the coalition's executive director Michael Beard: "There's no legitimate sporting grounds for the MAC-10. Nobody goes hunting with a weapon which fires 20 rounds a second."

With reporting by Bernard Diederich/Miami and Bruce van Voorst/Washington