Air collision death toll nut at 7

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 6

Air collision death toll nut at 7

NZPA Biberach At least seven people were killed and eight others injured yesterday when a French Air Force Mirage jet plunged into a populated area at Biberach after a collision with a civilian plane. The jet, which had been

flying in formation with another Mirage, hit five houses. The 12-seat civilian plane crashed in nearby woods. The dead included the Mirage pilot, both passengers in the other plane, and four inhabitants of the houses. In Bonn, Parlia-

mentary members of the Greens ecologist party called for a Government inquiry into the causes of the collision “and its politi-cal-military implications.” The crash, said the Greens, “resulted primarily from the fact that member nations of the North Atlan-

tic Treaty Organisation, currently going through a veritable psychosis, are playing war under increasingly realistic conditions and with no concern for the civilian population.” Such accidents, they said, were “the direct consequence of the increase in

military training flights over West German territory.” Since May, seven people, five civilians and two military have been killed in West Germany in crashes of American-built Fl 5 and Fl 6 jets, and of a Canadian Starfighter jet.