Cure for Crashes?

The only perfectly safe airplane is one on the ground, with engines stopped, fuel tanks purged.

In 1946, when U.S. commercial airlines were busier than ever before, they compiled the best safety record in history: 1.24 passengers killed per 100 million passenger-miles flown on scheduled flights. But in the last four months, 74 men, women & children have died in U.S. airline crashes. Etched into the public's mind last week were pictures of crumpled wreckage and gobbeted bodies that were far more vivid than any statistics. In Congress, South Carolina's Representative L. Mendel Rivers cried: "There's something wrong with the whole doggone setup and something ought to be done about it."

Congress' way of doing things is to start an investigation--and one began immediately. First on the griddle were the Civil Aeronautics Administration and the Civil Aeronautics Board, which together regulate U.S. commercial aviation.*

For the Senate Commerce Committee, CAB Chairman James M. Landis had a ready answer--lack of money. He could point out that CAA's request last year for $90,000,000 to improve air safety had been cut by the Budget Bureau to $68,000,000, by Congress to $64,000,000. This year's request had already been pared by the President's budgeteers from $113,980,000 to $92,271,000. Recently CAA had to close down 55 air communications stations and three airport control towers for lack of funds. "For the past seven years," said CAA Administrator T. P. Wright, "we have gotten about two-thirds of what we needed."

Controlled Approach. In sober fact, CAA had done a creditable job with what it had. It had given top priority to what everyone agreed was the No. 1 problem--landing in soupy weather. That CAA still considered this a problem exasperated the Army, the Navy and the public. For the past year and a half the public had heard of the spectacular feats of the Army & Navy's G.C.A. (Ground Controlled Approach). It was relatively simple. The only equipment needed in the plane was an ordinary two-way radio. A radar unit on the field picked up the plane, radioed the pilot what course to fly at what speed, when to lose altitude and how much. Experienced crews brought the plane smack down the middle of the runway again & again in zero-zero conditions. Neither service considered it experimental. The Army has recorded 35,000 G.C.A. landings, the Navy 18,863, in the U.S. and overseas.

But by the time the curtain of military secrecy was lifted from G.C.A. in mid-1945, CAA's critical eye had found many shortcomings in its commercial usefulness. The military sets required a crew of five--far too many for round-the-clock operations on CAA's tight budget. Many pilots disliked the idea of putting themselves in the hands of an unknown operator on the ground. Furthermore, G.C.A. was not foolproof--a fact emphasized this week when a Navy four-engined transport, landing through the fog at the Oakland airport under G.C.A. control, crashed and burned.

After working out alterations which cut the operating crew to two, CAA now feels that G.C.A. is practical as a check for other landing methods, and has authorized experimental units at Washington, Chicago, and LaGuardia Field.

Instrument Landing. The device which CAA is really counting on for immediate help is the Instrument Landing System. I.L.S. consists of a radio ground unit which directs two localized beams down the runway. One marks the center line of the runway, the other determines the glide path. By keeping two needles on the instrument panel of his plane crossed at precise right angles, the pilot can keep his plane on the beam, take it down through correct approach and landing. This system leaves control of the plane with the pilot, a feature that pilots like. (A refinement now under service test: a device which sends the signals direct to an automatic pilot for a "hands-off" landing, but leaves the pilot free to take over at will.)

I.L.S. ground installations, which cost $75,000 each, have already been set up on 32 U.S. airports, though none is yet utilized by commercial lines. By April, CAA hopes to have 70. Meanwhile, all major airlines are equipping their planes with I.L.S. receivers (cost: $1,500). All have I.L.S. training programs for their pilots well under way.

There was another possible crash-causing factor for which CAA had no technical answer; the desperate postwar competition among the airlines. Many companies are fighting for their existence against heavy overhead, higher operating costs, and reduced mail revenue. If one pilot on one airline decides to take a chance on bad weather to push his flight through, rival pilots are under heavy pressure to try it too, perhaps against their better judgment.

Last week, CAA welcomed the Congressional investigations, in the hope that public airing of the problems would result in higher appropriations. The airlines concurred. CAA thought that with the safety aids already available, and money to buy them, 33% of last year's accidents could have been averted.

*The Civil Aeronautics Board, the policy-making agency, prescribes safety standards and regulations, regulates rates, assigns routes, and investigates accidents. The Civil Aeronautics Administration, the operating agency, enforces CAB regulations, provides navigational facilities, controls air traffic, conducts technical development and plans airway expansion.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.