For Safety

In the nine years from Jan. 1, 1928 to Jan 1 1937 there were 55 wrecks of scheduled U. S. passenger airliners bringing death to 181 passengers, or one tor every 2,000,000 miles of flight. Best year was 1933, when airlines flew 21,700,000 passenger-miles per fatality. Worst accident year on record for U. S. railroads was 1907, when they killed 647 passengers while running 27,700,000,000 passenger-miles. This was 42,800,000 passenger-miles per fatality or about twice as good as the air's best record. In 1936, though the lines equaled their most favorable record for crashes (eight), they killed a record number of passengers (44) because ships have got bigger. This holocaust has lately shrunk public confidence in flying to new lows, caused a terrific din of discussions about air safety. This week the April issue of FORTUNE summarizes air safety in the most thorough and lucid article on the subject to date. And last week a committee of the U. S. Senate, sharing the same views, took steps toward doing something about them.

FORTUNE goes toward its conclusions like many a law student, by studying case histories since "modern flying" began.

"Modern flight," says FORTUNE, dates from about the spring of 1935, when airlines standardized their operations manuals.

Since then there have been eleven fatal crashes of scheduled passenger transports, first and most significant of which was that of a TWA Douglas at Atlanta, Mo. in which Senator Bronson Cutting was killed (TIME, May 13, 1935). This disaster evoked from the Senators surviving colleagues a torrent of denunciation against the airlines and an investigation which has continued 20 months.

Pilot error occurred in almost every crash, according to FORTUNE'S investigation into official and final Department oi Commerce reports and according to the lines' own findings. Example: the pilot was thrust into an unnecessarily dangerous situation by faulty dispatching (once), radio troubles (often) or bad weather forecasting (often). No crash of a scheduled plane in recent years has been due to structural failure of the plane itself. No one has ever proved that a radio beam has failed, but any map of the radio ranges shows that many more are needed.

For example, the Government has provided American Airlines not one modern range on its 466-mi. run from Tucson to Los Angeles. The most important single factor impeding air safety thus comes down to the unbalance between the flying equipment of the operators, which is the best in the world, and that of the Government, which is mediocre.

FORTUNE concludes: 1) that the errors of pilots could be corrected by inaugurating more rigid training in instrument flying; 2) that the Department of Commerce should immediately double its radio beacon ranges and Weather Bureau stations; 3) that the Government should simplify flying regulations; 4) that the operators should speedily develop an infallible blind landing system.

Senate-- Last week the Senate investigating committee, under New York's Royal S. Copeland, put into its report recommendations parallel to those made in FORTUNE. Most important proposals: 1) reorganization of Government air transport administration with a revival of the post of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Air, who would have two subordinates, one for flight activities, the other for ground facilities; 2) appropriation of $12,414,000 for proven aids, of which $10,000,000 should be spent on ground facilities, $2,364,000 to improve the Weather Bureau, $50,000 to study pilot fatigue; 3) that the Bureau of Air Commerce cease spending money on developing low-price private planes; 4) overhaul of the airmail rates and postal regulations. Summarized the Committee: "Until the air transport business can be placed upon a profitable basis, the situation . . . will remain unhealthy." Whether or not these proposals would become law, and whether or not the laws would accomplish their purpose, no citizen could say. But many were convinced that in two years the Government could go a long way toward making the air as safe as it has made the sea in the past two.

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