First Strike

Up to last week no reputable airline had ever blamed a crash on lightning. Lacking an authentic case of lightning destroying an airplane and its occupants in flight, most aeronautic experts considered such a thing outside the realm of j possibility. According to Jerome Clarke Hunsaker, Mechanical Engineering department head at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Federal Aviation Commission (see above), there have been several cases of balloons being struck by lightning and a few cases of minor damage to heavier-than-air craft. But, says that onetime naval commander, "the probability of serious effect of lightning on modern metal airplanes is extremely remote because of sharp points permitting the charge to drain off." According to Secretary Lester Durand Gardner of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, which held its third annual meeting last week in Manhattan, the destructive effect of lightning on an all-metal plane in flight is "unthinkable."

Nevertheless Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij voor Nederland en Kolonien (Royal Dutch Airlines) last week blamed the crash of its famed Douglas Airliner Uiver (Stork) in the Syrian Desert six weeks ago on lightning (TIME, Dec. 31). According to KLM's experts who examined the wreckage, Uiver hit the ground at full flying speed, switches on, throttles open, stabilizer set for cruising, landing gear retracted. The gasoline fire which consumed most of the plane destroyed most of the evidence. But tools and other metal parts untouched by the flames showed marks of extreme local heat and partial melting. And the bodies of six victims found outside the machine, likewise untouched by flames, showed typical electrical burns on all parts in contact with the plane's metallic chairs. Said KLM's report: "The experts came to the conclusion that the machine had been struck by a heavy flash of lightning which killed its occupants instantaneously, and that it continued flying until it struck the ground, where it crashed, somersaulted and the petrol burst into flames."

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