Back to Duty

On the second day of the hearing at Reading, Pa. a witness walked in with a handful of scored and pitted electrical fittings from the wreckage of the T.W.A. Constellation Star of Lisbon (TIME, July 22). By the time he had finished his testimony, the Civil Aeronautics Board had the answer to the most publicized of recent airplane crashes. The cause: a smoking short circuit in the forward baggage compartment of the sleek Connie, where wires from the generators are piped into the pressurized fuselage.

A whole array of other witnesses and experts double-checked the findings. From a bed in the Reading Hospital, T.W.A. Captain Richard Brown, the plane's sole survivor, said that smoke swirling up through the baggage hatch was so intense that it was impossible to see the pilot across the flight deck, that he had as a last resort attempted to land blind.

Wrapping it all up, the Civil Aeronautics Administration last week announced its decision. As soon as necessary modifications could be made, mostly in the plane's wiring system, the grounding order would be rescinded. Airline operators expected to have the Constellations back in the air by mid-September.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.