Yesterday’s incident – and the deaths on Igman the day before – highlight the dangers posed by the

Yesterday’s incident – and the deaths on Igman the day before – highlight the dangers posed by the international involvement in Bosnia. Brig Brims was careful to praise the Croatian authorities for their support yesterday, but relations are not always good.The Rapid Reaction Force must contend with the suspicion and demands of the Bosnian and Croatian governments, which have refused to allow some elements of the force to cross the border and deploy in Bosnia. Officers have confirmed it was not the result of hostile action.”This is a tragic accident which has saddened the entire brigade,” said Brigadier Robin Brims, commander of 24 Air Mobile Brigade. The Army would not release the names of the victims until their families had been informed.An investigation is under way to discover why the Lynx, on routine reconnaissance training, ditched in the Adriatic, 5 miles south of Ploce. All five men on board were from 3 Regiment and had arrived in Ploce three weeks ago to join the multi-national force, whose job is to protect UN peace-keepers in Bosnia. “He’s obviously been incredibly lucky.The aircraft turned upside own.

He managed to escape and get to the surface.”Rescue helicopters found only debris, but army divers found the wreckage in 80ft of water. “It has been confirmed there are four bodies in the aircraft, which are being recovered,” Col Greenhalgh said. The disaster ended a grim weekend for the international community in Bosnia, where three American officials and a French peace- keeper were killed in a traffic accident on the treacherous Igman road into Sarajevo.One man survived the crash with only cuts and bruises, and was rescued by a Croat fishing boat, the commanding officer of 3 Regiment, Army Air Corps, Lieutenant-Colonel John Greenhalgh said in Ploce. “We can never replace these men, but we will reconstitute our team.”President Bill Clinton vowed on Saturday that the United States would continue efforts to end the bloodshed in Bosnia despite the death of the three US diplomats.. EMMA DALY

Ploce
and SARAH HELMZagrebFour British soldiers from the multi-national Rapid Reaction Force were killed yesterday when their helicopter crashed into the Adriatic off the coast of Croatia. “At the President’s specific instructions we will resume our efforts to bring peace to this most troubled part of Europe,” he said.

We will return tomorrow to Washington as a team,” Mr Holbrooke said. Their meeting with President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, scheduled for Sunday, would be postponed for a week or eight days. French Marines formed an honour guard and unloaded the coffins, draped in American and French flags, from French UN helicopters.A US Air Force jet brought the survivors and the bodies to Ramstein air base in southern Germany.”We went to the Bosnian conflict as a team early this week. They were due to discuss the new proposals for a territorial carve-up of Bosnia.The bodies of Robert Frasure, US envoy to the five-nation Contact Group on Bosnia, two other US officials and the French soldier, were flown from Sarajevo to the Croatian port of Split yesterday for transport home.

The delegation had been on their way for talks with the Bosnian government in Sarajevo when the accident happened. A French UN peace-keeper also died.Early reports suggested that the vehicle had hit a mine, laid as part of Bosnian government defenses in the area. However, Mr Holbrooke, who was travelling in another vehicle, said the accident happened when a narrow, wet section of road gave way. Some UN officials expressed surprise yesterday that the delegation was on that section of road, which is notoriously dangerous, when a safer option had been available.The accident is unlikely to affect the new American drive to lead the peace effort which US officials believe has been made possible by the Croatian re-capture of the formerly Serb-occupied area of Krajina. But is it on the Net? Yes it is, under “News summary”: updated at 12.26am on the East Coast – just four minutes ago.Charles Arthur.

SARAH HELM

Zagreb
and agenciesRichard Holbrooke, the US assistant secretary of state, said yesterday that the US peace efforts in former Yugoslavia would resume this week, despite the deaths of three members of the negotiating team in an accident near Sarajevo on Saturday.Mr Holbrooke flew back to Washington yesterday with the bodies of his three colleagues, who died when the armoured personnel carrier in which they were travelling across Mount Igman slipped off the road and plunged into a ravine. The oddly-named clari.news.trouble (which has stories, mostly from the standard news wires) offers the stories about Hargreaves that have been on the wires for some time. But the difference is that you do not have to wait for tomorrow’s paper. You could be sitting up at 4.30am, like me.AP reports the Tyson fight should be starting about now AP says Tyson won in the first round. Now will it be on the Net? The security guard, passing on his rounds, mentions that Tyson won. There only seem to be about three people in Bermuda with an Internet connection and none of them knows the result of the referendum.Kevin Campbell, writing the Internet column in eye – a free paper based in Toronto – says journalists are used to government and business burying critical data in a sea of irrelevant facts.