World Notes WEST GERMANY

+ On a quiet, misty afternoon last week in Remscheid, a working-class town in West Germany's Ruhr district, a U.S. A-10A fighter plane suddenly plummeted out of the low overcast, its twin jets screaming. "It raced over my head at a height of about 15 meters ((roughly 50 ft.)) and came down like a huge fireball," said Fritz Hesse, who was working on his roof.

Nearby, Nicholas Robles' apartment went up in flames; the family barely escaped alive.

Not so lucky were the American pilot, who had inexplicably veered off course, and at least five German civilians, who were killed. Some 50 others were injured as the A-10A disintegrated in flames, demolishing four apartment buildings and setting fire to eight others.

The crash was the latest in a series of air mishaps that have brought angry demands from the West German public for an end to low-level training flights. The Cabinet immediately suspended low-flying exercises until the end of the year and asked U.S. and other NATO forces to do the same. U.S. Ambassador Richard Burt, saying he was "shocked and very saddened," announced that the U.S. would comply.