Simultaneous Failure

Average annual fatalities in U. S. commercial aviation from 1928 to 1935 were 33. In 1936 there was a jump to 67. Only one less died last year. With this year less than half gone, 29 have been killed on scheduled airline runs.

Of the crash of a United Air Liner in a Cleveland gulch last week, this much was known: at 11:07 p.m., the DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport) radioed Cleveland: SHIP OVER PARKMAN. FOUR THOUSAND FEET ALTITUDE. EVERYTHING O.K. A few minutes later Radio Operator James C. Wynne, in the Cleveland Airport control tower, saw the plane and prepared to "talk" Pilot James Brandon in to a landing. Suddenly the DST disappeared.

What happened could only be pieced together from what was left of the plane after it crashed and burned, and what was left of the truth when eyewitnesses had had time to use their imaginations. Said an authoritative non-witness, William A. Patterson, president of United: "Neither of the two engines was in operation at the moment of impact. This is the first time in our experience of flying 75,000,000 miles with twin engine airplanes that we have had what appears to be simultaneous power failure of both engines."

U. A. L. officials removed the battered engines to their Cleveland shop, dismantled them. In the starboard engine they and Department of Commerce agents found a faulty master rod bearing and the crushed remnants of a link pin. That apparently accounted for the failure of one engine. Missing links to the disaster story were the failure of the other motor, and Pilot Brandon's failure to drop flares which would have shown him that the gully he crashed in was flanked by broad, roomy fields.

Those who knew the pilot agreed he must have been in a tight spot, for James L. ("Monty") Brandon was one of aviation's cool oldtimers. During the War he piloted the rattling biplanes of the British Royal Air Force as an instructor, afterwards fought in Russia for the White Army. He was one of the handful of commercial pilots with "1,000,000-mile" flying records. In May 1935, he flew influenza serum from Newark to the Eskimos of upper Alaska. Aboard was another air veteran--Douglas Aircraft Co.'s Test Pilot E. H. Veblen, who had ferried a DC-3 east for delivery to the Soviet's Amtorg Trading Corp. and was returning to Los Angeles. Another passenger was L. Arthur Doty, 42, Boston credit manager for Texaco, who was flying to Chicago to attend the funeral of his brother Harold, killed a few hours before in a railroad accident.

In the Department of Commerce in Washington the following conversation took place:

Reporter: "Why are there so many accidents on the airlines?"

Secretary of Commerce Roper: "Why are there so many tragedies in life?"

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