Illegal CFC's 'seep' into U.S.

NEW DELHI, India (AP) € Smuggled CFC gas from India has been seeping into the United States by the ton, allowing American motorists to stay cool for less this summer but prolonging the threat to the Earth's ozone shield.

The U.S. Customs Service says the contraband chlorofluorocarbon-12, the air-conditioning gas commonly called Freon, has suddenly become its No. 2 problem, behind illegal drugs.

Whoever is shipping it, plenty is available: India's manufacturers are being squeezed out of other remaining legal CFC markets by big Western companies.

Environmentalists say the Earth's ozone layer, at best, won't recover its previous density until the mid-21st century, and the smuggling and Third World sales threaten to set even that goal back.

A ''hole'' in the ozone layer over Antarctica has appeared annually since the early 1980s. The World Meteorological Organization reports a similar phenomenon now worsening over the Northern Hemisphere.

Wreckage of 1982 crash found

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) € The wreckage of an airplane that disappeared more than 13 years ago has been found with the skeletons of five people on board, a news agency reported yesterday.

The remains of the Piper Aztec were found Friday by four villagers collecting firewood in a remote jungle in the Kejuruan Muda district of Indonesia's northernmost province of Aceh, the official Antara news agency said.

It quoted police Capt. Tamzil Djalil as saying some documents in the wreckage indicated that the plane, owned by a plantation company, had crashed on Nov. 25, 1982, with five people, including top officials of the company, aboard.