DATE: Friday, September 19, 1997            TAG: 9709190851

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG                    LENGTH:   35 lines

2 VIRGINIANS AMONG THE DEAD IN U.N. COPTER CRASH IN BOSNIA

Two Spotsylvania County men were among the five Americans killed in a United Nations helicopter crash in Bosnia.

They were David J. ``Kris'' Kriskovich, 56, and Olivio Albert Beccaccio, according to Thursday's edition of The (Fredericksburg) Free Lance-Star. They were retired FBI agents and next-door neighbors.

Kriskovich was the deputy director of the U.N.'s International Police Task Force in Bosnia. Beccaccio, who worked for the State Department, was his assistant. They had been in Bosnia since March to help rebuild the Bosnian police force, said Kriskovich's daughter, Elizabeth Tansing of Vienna.

The helicopter slammed into a fog-shrouded mountain in central Bosnia on Wednesday and burst into flames. Six others also died in the worst accident to hit the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia.

Four Ukrainian crew members of the U.N. helicopter - an Mi-8 leased from Ukraine - survived the crash, two of them with minor injuries, German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said.

The crew managed to escape through the shattered glass nose of the craft but was hindered from helping passengers because of fire and thick smoke.

According to one Ukrainian crew member, the weather was good at first, but they later encountered dense fog, said U.N. spokesman Liam McDowall. When the pilot attempted to gain altitude, the helicopter crashed into the mountain, McDowall said.

Kriskovich was well known in law-enforcement circles as the founder, developer and director of the FBI's International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program. Its mission was to stabilize and strengthen emerging foreign democracies by improving their criminal justice systems.

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