Third Strike

West from Cleveland, at 6,000 feet, in the bright, clear air just above an alabaster overcast, boomed United Air Lines Trip 21, bound for Chicago with 13 passengers, a crew of three. Over Lansing, Ill. (18 miles southeast of Chicago), handsome Captain Phil Scott, onetime University of Minnesota hockey captain, heard the hum of the Chicago beam in his earphones. By that time it was dark. Passengers and crew had seen the unforgettable sight of the setting sun turning the gleaming white cloud layer to a glory of gold. Now the stars were out, the cloud layer black as ink.

Over Lansing, Trip 21 circled for half an hour, waiting radio instructions to land while three other airliners went in first. Below the clouds the ceiling was 1,200 feet, visibility one mile--not the best weather of the year, but safe enough.

Around 5:30 Phil Scott was told to come on in. He headed north, nosing down through the overcast on instruments.

On Chicago's airport the lights were glowing--white, red, green. Men on the ground saw Trip 21 break out of the overcast, her red and green navigation lights sharp against the ceiling. From the control-tower speaker came Captain Scott's businesslike voice: "Contact--1,500"; i.e., at 1,500 feet he was out of the clouds, could see the ground. The laggard wind had freshened to 9 m.p.h. and Phil Scott had radioed he would come in on the northwest runway. As he made his turn, baggage handlers began wheeling their carts down to the gate where he was to dock.

Steady as a docking ship came Trip 21.

Suddenly its left wing dropped and the arrow-straight line of its flight path was broken. Inside the cabin a woman screamed. There was a horrible crash as the big silver monoplane broke an electric line. Beyond, only a block from the field, she hit the ground, burst asunder. From houses near by, residents of Cicero Avenue rushed to the wreck, carried out six dead, four who were to die before week's end, six who survived.

To Chicago sped Civil Aeronautics Bu-reaumen to investigate the third fatal crash on U. S. airliners since Aug. 30, after a flawless 17 months in which no airline passenger was killed. The cause of Trip 21's crash was a matter for public hearing, laboratory inspection of her engines, props and other remains. First news reports were that ice brought her down. United denied this report, pointed out that if Trip 21 was taking on ice. Pilot Scott would have reported it as airline rules prescribe, pointed out, too, that many other runs came in around the same time without icing trouble. Among themselves pilots made other guesses. Most likely: one of Trip 21's engines quit.

The crash put Franklin Roosevelt's new CAB on a hotter spot than ever. Thirteen of the airlines' perfect 17 months were flown under the supervision of the old Civil Aeronautics Authority. By Presidential order, CAA was taken from its independent status last May, made a bureau under the Department of Commerce. Part of the order abolished the independent Air Safety Board. Last week, while many an airman talked behind his hand of disorder and dissension in the new bureau. Senator Pat McCarran once again trumpeted the same charge from a Nevada mountaintop. "Chaos and confusion" in CAB, cried the legislative father of old CAA, were responsible for all three crashes in 1940. The voice of an oldtime airline airman seconded him: Dave Behncke, president of potent Air Line Pilots' Association.

Said he, in cold fury: "The airline pilots know that air travel is safe. . . . They recommended and sponsored the law that created the independent Air Safety Board . . . they have only to point to the world safety record in air travel that was established . . . before it [the Board] was abolished by Reorganization Plan No. 4. They know it can be done again by reestablishing the Air Safety Board to investigate accidents, and to make recommendations as a result of its investigations, to prevent accidents, and to make investigations into situations that may be potential crashes. ..." From Pat McCarran came a grim promise: a bill to be filed in January, re-establishing the old CAA.

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