$50 a Head

It was a good, brisk trade. There were thousands of New York's Puerto Ricans who wanted to go back home for a visit, but could not pay the $130 fare charged by the regular airline. By crowding them into converted Army transports, however, chartered lines could carry them and make money at only $50 a head. Puerto Ricans are small, and CAA agreed that the nonscheduled planes could load up to the maximum allowable weight, regardless of number, if there was a seat and a safety belt for each passenger.

One night last week, a converted C-47 of the small, G.I.-owned Burke Air Lines took off from Newark with 31 Puerto Rican passengers. Just before dawn, over the swampy flatlands near Melbourne, Fla., first one, then the second engine failed. The plane smashed through swamp pine, broke open like a melon on the soggy ground. Twenty-one were dead. Fifteen had somehow survived.

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