SDI Chief’s Wife Believed Dead

PLACERVILLE, Calif. — The wife of Air Force Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, director of the agency that coordinates the Strategic Defense Initiative research known as the “Star Wars” project, is presumed dead in the crash of a light plane that plunged into the rugged Sierra Nevada west of Lake Tahoe, authorities said today.

“We believe the general’s wife was on that plane and that she was killed in the crash,” Pentagon sources said. Two women and a man died in the crash Sunday. Sources said Abrahamson, who canceled a scheduled appearance today before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had left for California.