Crackdown

Manhattan's swelling Puerto Rican community has provided a lush bonanza tor nonscheduled U.S. airlines. For two years, many "non-skeds" had packed in their passengers like cattle to make their cut-rate fares profitable. Worse still in the same period there had been no less than four crashes, killing 117 people. The latest--and most serious--was six weeks ago when a Curtiss Commando plane operated by Strato-Freight, Inc. plunged into the Atlantic, killing 53 of its 81 occupants (TIME, June 20). After that, the Civil Aeronautics Administration decided to take a harder look at the non-skeds' safety practices.

Last week, CAA acted. Charging Strato-Freight with overloading and persistent violation of safety regulations (e.g., it had ignored a badly frayed flap follow-up cable), CAA ordered the airline to stop flying. It was the first time that CAA which usually leaves such police action to the Civil Aeronautics Board, had grounded an overseas airline.

CAB itself had already cracked down on another non-sked, California's Standard Airlines, for violating the rules for "irregulars" by flying too regularly. It had revoked Standard's operating certificate, effective this week (TIME, July 4) Last week, while Standard awaited the outcome of its appeal on CAB's ruling, one of its planes, a C-46, crashed into a California mountainside. The dead: 35.

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