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Daily News from New York, New York • 26
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Daily News from New York, New York • 26

Publication:
Daily Newsi
Location:
New York, New York
Issue Date:
Page:
26
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

r7 0 IP Flight 800 kin furious that '96 disaster didn't make FAA order fuel tank change BY BRIAN KATES DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER NEARLY A DECADE after TWA Flight 800 went down off Long Island, killing all 230 people on board, the chief of the National Transportation Safety Board yesterday said industrywide fuel tank problems that caused the crash are "largely unchanged." Acting NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker slammed the Federal Aviation Administration for "moving much too slowly" to require explosion-prevention "in-erting" devices that have been on the board's Most Wanted list since shortly after the July 17, 1996, tragedy. "Ten years after the TWA accident, fuel tank inerting systems are not in place in our airliners, and flammability exposure is largely unchanged," Rosenker management coordinator for Rutherford, whose sister JUL 23, was a Flight 800 crew member. "They are still allowing unsafe, aging planes to fly. That is unacceptable and horrifying." The FAA is still weighing comments on the proposed rules, but if it were to issue a mandate today, it would take seven years to retrofit U.S. jetliners, spokeswoman Alison Duquette said.

"Flying today is far safer than it was in 1996," Duquette added. "Since the TWA 800 accident, the FAA has issued hundreds of directives that have improved fuel tank safety." Boeing has included a fuel tank flammability reduction system as part of its new 787 Dream-liner aircraft and has begun installing inerting devices voluntar-Uy on newly buUt 747s. bfcatesnydai7ynews.com "Simply put, it is not justified from a benefit-cost perspective," the major industry group Air Transport Association of America said in a May 1 1 letter to the U.S. Transportation Department, the FAA's parent agency. In its analysis, the ATA said it jcost about $3 million for each passenger killed in a crash.

This year, the FAA estimated the total cost for retrofitting the existing U.S. fleet at $313 million and about $808 million over the next 49 years. "The FAA continues to disregard NTSB findings and put a price on human life," said Matt Ziemkiewicz, deputy emergency cluded in 2000 that a center-wing fuel tank explosion triggered by poorly designed wiring in the 25-year-old aircraft was the most likely cause of the Flight 800 crash. Since 1959, 26 fuel tank explosions have been documented in commercial and military aircraft. Four of them occurred after Flight 800, and 346 people have died in those explosions.

In November, the FAA proposed rules that would require fuel tank inerting, which have been standard on military aircraft since the Vietnam War. But airlines and manufacturers have lobbied against mandating the upgrades for cost reasons. said, referring to devices that pump nitrogen into partially filled fuel tanks to reduce oxygen that can cause explosions. Victims' family members were outraged. "The FAA is a disgrace.

It is time for a congressional investigation," said John Seaman, chairman of the Families of TWA Flight 800 Association, whose niece Michele died on the Paris-bound flight. "They are supposed to be protecting the American flying public. They should be held accountable." After a four-year, $38 million investigation the largest in aviation history the NTSB con Ulseguy gabs about d0r7- A' VOxY Guilty, sez New York's 'King' pimp THE SELF-PROCLAIMED "King of All Pimps" politely pleaded guilty yesterday to running a multimillion-dollar Manhattan call-girl operation. Jason Itzler, 39, admitted running the $800-an-hour hooker ring New York Confidential, which included some of the city's "top-rated" escorts, including knockout babe Natalia McLennan. Itzler, who has been held on Rikers Island since his arrest last year, pleaded guUty to money laundering and promoting prostitution.

He wiU serve 1 'Mo-three years in New York, then be sent to New Jersey, where he wiU serve a similar sentence for running the Hobo-ken branch of the same operation. "He wants to get on with his life," said Itzler's lawyer, Barry Agolnick. "He has tremendous entrepreneurial skills, which, harnessed the right way, wUl no doubt lead to his success." Itzler also agreed to forfeit assets seized by cops, including a $60,000 Mercedes, Cartier watch, computers and $2,200 in cash. "That's an hour's worth of Natalie," joked one investigator. Cocaine-possession charges were dropped as part of the deal.

Authorities are now expected to iron out plea deals with McLennan, who boasted that her job was a pleasure because she loved sex so much, and other suspected members of the New York Confidential crew. Barbara Ross and Dave Goldiner BY JOHN MARZUUJ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER IN A RARE MOVE, a reputed Bonanno crime soldier took the witness stand in his own defense yesterday to explain how he happened to get busted for a 1986 hit with the murder weapon in his pocket. Experts on organized crime couldn't recall a made member of the Mafia who wasn't a rat ever testifying in a federal court. But Stephen (Stevie Blue) Locurto is apparently trying to catch lightning in a bottle for the second time he took the stand in Manhattan Supreme Court in 1987 when he was tried for the same murder of Joseph Platia and beat the. rap.

At the time, Locurto had not yet been inducted into the crime family, authorities said. Locurto, 45, claims that he was leaving Nicole's restaurant qn Tenth Ave. in Manhattan "I loye the veal chops there," he recalled when he heard gunfire and saw someone fleeing an auto near 35th St. "I run over to the car to see what happened," he explained in Brooklyn Federal Court to defense lawyer Harry Batchelder. "I'm a hands-on person, so I open the car door.

There's a gun in the seat, wedged where the belt buckle goes. I grab it." Four Bonanno turncoats testified that Locurto whacked Platia to eliminate him as a witness to another killing, and a witness to the shooting told a 911 operator that cops grabbed the right guy. Locurto, who denied he's a mobster, is on trial with reputed soldier Baldassare Amato and associate Anthony BasUe who are charged with murdering former New York Post delivery foreman Robert Perrino. jmarzullinydailynews.com Seventy bicyclists Joined last night In a memorial ride for three bikers killed on city streets in the past three weeks. At 38th St.

and Hudson River Park, a "Ghost Bike" was placed in memory of Or. Carl Henry Nacht, who died after being hit by a police tow truck June 2L twEiflifiig udEii cops IPO 0) 5 8 CM CO 0) BY NANCIE KATZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER THE FORENSIC analyst whose work led to a murder indictment against an ex-FBI agent denied yesterday she's been uncooperative with police probing an attack on her. Angela Clemente, now in another state to help her ailing mother, disputed that she faUed to show up twice to meet with police artists to create a sketch of her assaUant. No one has been arrested in the attack on Clemente, who was beaten and choked in her car June 16 after going to Ben-sonhurst, Brooklyn, to meet someone she thought was a law-enforcement source. "Never once did I aU to cooperate.

Never once did I not show up for the sketch. My mother had a stroke, and the police canceled the first one," she said. Clemente's secretive seven-year probe ended in February with the blockbuster indictment against retired FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio for allegedly helping his top Mafia informer, Gregory Scarpa whack four enemies. Clemente, a congressional forensic analyst who tried to expose corruption, is amazed she is now accused of it. "I presented the rase for Congress.

I presented the case for the criminal actions the Brooklyn district attorney now has," she said. "Now it is being twisted around that I am some kind of criminal for presenting a criminal case." Clemente said she has been working closely with Brooklyn prosecutors and cops to identify-her attacker. A spokesman for Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said his office believed Clemente's story. nkatznydailynews.com.

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