Warning

By May 15, all scheduled airlines carrying passengers at night, or under instrument flying conditions, must be equipped with crash warning radars.* The original deadline, Feb. 15, has been extended by the Civil Aeronautics Board because the manufacturers could not produce the radars fast enough.

Crash warning radars were first demonstrated by Howard Hughes and installed on his Trans World Airline (TIME, May 12). They flash lights (some of them also sound horns or buzzers) when the plane comes within 1,000 or 2,000 feet of an obstacle, either ahead or below. Chief value: the pilot is warned that an unseen mountain, or other dangerous "terrain," is close. The warning gives him time to climb out of trouble.

* Or, as airmen like to doubletalk it: "absolute terrain proximity indicators."

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