ALCOHOL TEST ON PILOT CALLED INCONCLUSIVE.

Byline: Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Colombian authorities expressed surprise and irritation Thursday that U.S. officials had released information indicating that alcohol had been detected in the remains of the American Airlines pilot whose plane crashed here last month.

"I'm as surprised as you are," Dr. Jose Gregorio Mesa, acting director of the Colombian Institute of Legal Medicine, told reporters. "In no way have we reached this (conclusion)."

The institute is conducting tests on the bodies of the crew of American Airlines Flight 965, which plowed into a mountain outside Cali on Dec. 20. The crash, which killed 160 of the 164 passengers and crew, was the worst disaster in U.S. aviation last year.

Even if there is alcohol in the body of Capt. Nicholas Tafuri, it would not necessarily mean that he had been drinking before the crash. Alcohol also can be created by the body's decomposition.