Broken Boeings

Down a runway at Wright Field, Dayton, one day last week roared the huge Boeing 299, largest landplane ever built in the U. S., on a routine test flight for a possible Army contract (TIME, July 15). Because the 70-ft., metalclad monster with its four machine-gun turrets, 6-ton bomb capacity and speed of 256 m.p.h. was regarded as the greatest battle plane ever designed, two young officers, Lieutenants Leonard F. Harman and Robert K. Giovannoli, looked up with interest as it fled past them down the field. Suddenly, when the four-motored plane was nearly 200 ft. off the ground, it lurched to one side, began to wheel in a 180DEG turn which could have but one meaning. Lieutenants Harman & Giovannoli gauged with experienced eyes the spot where the monoplane was about to crash, started for it at a dead run.

Before they could get there, the bomber pancaked into the smooth field, exploded, broke in two, spouted flames. In spite of the danger of more explosions, the two young officers wrapped their coats over their heads, plunged straight into the blaze, dragged out Leslie Tower, chief Boeing test pilot and Major Ployer P. Hill, flying chief at Wright Field, both badly burned. The other three occupants managed to crawl out by themselves.

Hospitalized, Major Hill died without regaining consciousness; the others, including Heroes Harman & Giovannoli, were expected to recover. The plane, which cost Boeing some $500,000 to develop and had only the day before received its design patent, was a total loss.

Half a day later another Boeing plane cracked up. This one was a twin-motor transport being tested by United Air Lines. Taking off from Cheyenne at night in a gentle snowfall, it droned away with four aboard. Chief Test Pilot M. T. Arnold was on duty; three other United employes went along for a "pleasure ride." Twenty-five minutes later witnesses heard the motor falter overhead, saw a great fountain of flame in the darkness as the monoplane lunged into a knoll. By the time they reached the wreckage, little was left but a smoldering pile of twisted metal and four bodies burned almost beyond identification.

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