FOUR DIE IN KOREAN AIR CRASH, ROUTE BAN EXTENDED

   Four crewmembers were killed in a Korean Air Lines freighter crash near London on Dec. 22, investigators said.
   The KAL B747-200 freighter burst into flames shortly after take-off from Stansted Airport, according to witnesses. No one on the ground was injured.
   In response, the Korean government has extended by six months a one-year ban on KAL from adding any new international routes. Korea imposed the one-year ban last month after U.S. investigators cited pilot error in a KAL B747 crash that killed 228 people in Guam in 1997. New sanctions extend the ban until May 2001.
   KAL, the world’s second largest international air cargo carrier behind
Lufthansa Cargo, has had two fatal crashes involving cargo planes this
year. In April, a KAL MD-11 freighter crashed into a construction site just after take-off from an airport in Shanghai, killing nine people.