SOUTH

13 KILLED IN CRASH OF COMMUTER PLANE IN MISSOURI

KIRKSVILLE, Mo. – The bodies of five people were found yesterday in the wreckage of a commuter plane that crashed and burned as it carried doctors and other medical professionals to a conference.

Dr. Steve Z. Miller, the director of pediatric emergency medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, was on the commuter plane when it went down Tuesday night, the school confirmed yesterday. The twin-engine turboprop crashed a few miles from the Kirksville, Mo., airport where it was preparing to land. It was carrying 13 passengers and two crew members from St. Louis.

Thirteen people died in the crash; two escaped with little more than broken bones. The bodies of all the victims have now been recovered.

“It was remarkable,” said National Transportation Safety Board member Carol Carmody of the survivors. The plane took off from St. Louis and went down in woods as it came in for a landing in Kirksville, a city of about 17,000.

Authorities called it a miracle that anyone managed to survive the crash of the Jetstream 32, a 19-seat twin-engine turboprop flown by Corporate Airlines.

Rescuers found the plane’s fuselage in flames, with one of its wings broken off. The two survivors, a 44-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man, suffered only broken bones and some burns, and were in fair condition yesterday.

“We see car accidents with worse injuries coming in here every week,” said Dr. Charles Zeman, director of trauma services at Northeast Regional Medical Center.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

JUDGE BARS GOVERNMENT FROM LISTENING IN ON GUANTANAMO MEETINGS

A federal judge ruled yesterday that terror suspects held in Cuba must be allowed to meet with lawyers, and that the government cannot monitor their conversations.

In a strongly worded rebuke of the Bush administration, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected the administration’s argument that the detainees were not entitled to lawyers.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that the then-600 foreign-born men held in the Navy-run prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could challenge their captivity in American courts. Judge Kollar-Kotelly said that would be impossible without legal help. “They have been detained virtually incommunicado for nearly three years without being charged with any crime. To say that (detainees’) ability to investigate the circumstances surrounding their capture and detention is ‘seriously impaired’ is an understatement,” she wrote.

Multiple cases have been filed in federal court in Washington on behalf of Guantanamo detainees. Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling came in the case of three Kuwaiti nationals who have been held since shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Government lawyers had agreed to let the men see attorneys, but argued that was not legally required. The government also wanted to monitor the meetings and review attorneys’ notes – something Judge Kollar-Kotelly said would infringe on the detainees’ attorney-client privilege.

– Associated Press

NORTHEAST

ABC DROPS MISS AMERICA

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – ABC-TV has pulled the plug on Miss America, leaving the famous beauty pageant without a network television sponsor for the first time in 50 years.

ABC, which had carried the annual telecast since 1997 with a series of one-year contracts, notified Miss America Organization officials that they will not pick up the option this year, Acting President and CEO Arthur McMaster said yesterday.

“This is a good day for the Miss America Organization,” he said. “We are now free to pursue other parties who have expressed interest in our organization, and we are excited at the limitless opportunities that are now available for us to grow our brand.” The move, which comes on the heels of a September 18 pageant that drew a record-low 9.8 million viewers, could jeopardize the foundation of a program that grew from an Atlantic City publicity stunt into a TV event, largely on the strength of the contest beamed into millions of living rooms each September.

– Associated Press