Star of Lisbon

Farmer George Boeshore looked up. The big four-motored, shark-bodied plane had passed & repassed over his father's farm all day, practicing landings at the nearby Reading, (Pa.) airport. But this time something was wrong. A plume of black smoke trailed from the plane, then burst into red flame. Farmer Boeshore saw the big craft drop into a glide and head for the field two miles away.

It never made it. With a tearing crash the plane ripped into the Boeshores' wheat stubble. It skidded a full 1,000 feet across the road, plowed into another wheat field and crashed into flaming junk.

Racing up, George Boeshore found T.W.A. Captain Norman A. Nilsen, thrown clear of the crash, but mortally injured. Another farmer, passing by in his truck, found T.W.A. Captain Richard Brown, dazed by the side of the road, took him to a hospital. He was the sole survivor. In the blazing, gutted carcass of the Lockheed Constellation "Star of Lisbon," four other TWAirmen died.

Safety Order. Hurriedly the Civil Aeronautics Administration swung into action. Before the embers had cooled, CAA cracked down with an order it had never before invoked*: all Constellations would be grounded for 30 days while the crash was investigated.

The impact of the order was felt around the world as the flashy, popular "Connies," which hauled some 2,500 passengers a week in overseas flights, some 4,000 in domestic routes, were pulled off the airways.

Despite the confusion and inconvenience, most laymen heartily approved CAA's action. Reason: the "Star of Lisbon" was the third Constellation to catch fire and crash-land in the last ten months. The first, an Army plane manned by a Pan American crew, went down near Linn, Kans. in September. The second was a commercial Pan American ship (carrying members of London's Old Vic company back to Britain), which dropped an engine and squeaked into Willimantic, Conn, last month.

Both times the fire had been caused by a broken drive shaft in the cabin pressurizing system. Until the trouble could be remedied, commercial, airlines had been staying below 10,000 feet. But the Army had cautiously kept its C-69's on the ground altogether.

Safety Device. There had been other, less serious accidents. Often Constellation engines (Wright 2,500 h.p.) had blazed up as a result of fires in the fuel-induction system. They were quickly brought under control. But the danger was so great that CAA and Lockheed engineers had designed and installed an elaborate fire detection and extinguishing system within the engine nacelles. Another protection item of dubious appeal to unsuspecting airline passengers: an easily melting engine mounting, which would allow a blazing motor to fall off before the fire wall in the wing was breached.

While investigators searched the wreckage of the "Star of Lisbon" for clues to the crash and waited for Captain Brown to be ready for thorough questioning, a heated controversy flared up over the merits of the airways' sleekest, flashiest beauty. Said David L. Behncke, president of the A.F.L.'s Airlines Pilot Association. who had twice before complained to CAA about the Constellation: "A majority of the pilots flying Constellations believed the planes were definitely dangerous and unsafe for commercial airline use." Airline operators rallied to the "Connie's" defense. Said T.W.A. President Jack Frye, who was one of its godfathers: "The most outstanding transport plane in the industry's service."

Actually no one was contesting the essential virtues of the Constellation. It was fast, comfortable, easy to handle. It had been accepted and recommended by the Army, approved (perhaps too enthusiastically) by the CAA and rushed into production at war's end to skim the cream off the four-motor market. Like any new aircraft, it still suffered from operational bugs. Until they could be licked, most airline patrons were likely to agree with CAA that the Constellations should stay on the ground.

*In pre-CAA days the Department of Commerce grounded all tri-motor, 1929-model Fokkers after the 1931 Kansas crash in which famed Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne and seven other passengers were killed.

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