ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 5, 1996 TAG: 9604050075
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FAIRFAX
SOURCE: Associated Press
Daniel R. Bannister was pale and quiet as he gazed at a dogeared itinerary for the trip he was supposed to take with Commerce Secretary Ron Brown minutes after he learned Brown's plane was missing.
Bannister, the chief executive of DynCorp Inc. of Reston, had just hung up the phone after talking to his wife, who had called sobbing from her car phone. ``Did you hear? Did you hear?'' Paula Bannister had asked him.
An Air Force jetliner carrying Brown and a delegation of American business executives veered off course and crashed into a cloud-covered hill Wednesday near Dubrovnik, Croatia. All 35 aboard were killed.
Bannister was among about 15 U.S. executives Brown had invited on the trade mission to the former Yugoslavia.
``I am obviously grateful I didn't make the trip,'' Bannister, 67, said in a stunned monotone as he pondered what an aide had just told him. ``I deeply regret what has happened.''
Bannister had planned for weeks to accompany Brown, but backed out of the trip last Friday. He was still listed on some official rosters, and some news organizations in Washington initially reported that Bannister was traveling with Brown.
The close call rattled Bannister to the core, he said.
``I was thinking a million things in two minutes,'' he said. ``I keep thinking that I am so lucky to be alive and all the things that you want to do.''
Bannister decided not to join Brown partly because he wanted to attend a ceremony Wednesday with Gov. George Allen. Bannister was standing near the Republican governor when he got word of the crash.
The trip itinerary was still in the breast pocket of his jacket.
``It really was a last-minute decision, and I really wavered as to whether this was more important,'' Bannister said.
DynCorp, a high technology services firm, has contracts with NATO, the State Department and the United Nations in Bosnia. The company supplies computer programming, transportation, housing and other services for U.S. troops.
On Wednesday, DynCorp announced an $18 million contract with the State Department to provide police officers to staff a United Nations civilian police mission in Bosnia.
DynCorp has about 600 employees in Bosnia.
DynCorp, with nearly $1 billion in annual revenues and 17,000 employees, is one of the nation's largest employee-owned technology companies.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Daniel Bannister and his wife, Paula, are stillby CNBstunned by his close call. color.