"Why This Failure . . ."

Southeastward at 18,000 ft. over southern Indiana one afternoon last week bored a Northwest Airlines propjet Lockheed Electra bearing passengers from snowy Minneapolis and Chicago to Miami. At about 3 o'clock, Pilot Ed Laparle, 57, checked on the radio with Indianapolis Control Center, signed off with an all's well. Fifteen minutes later, a farmer in the Ohio River town of Tell City, Ind. heard "popping sounds, like shotgun shells or a little louder." Looking up, he saw the Electra break in two pieces, the right wing looping off in one direction, the rest of the plane plunging toward a soybean field. As the plane smashed into the ground, another explosion ripped it apart, flinging debris and pieces of bodies for hundreds of yards in all directions. In those few moments, all aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 710--57 passengers and six crew members--were killed. The disaster brought 1160's U.S. airlines death total to 147.

Similarities. The plane and its final explosion blew out a smoldering crater 50 ft. wide and 25 ft. deep. Civil Aeronautics Board crash specialists found empty, neatly laced shoes, a stray airmail letter, a bloodstained blouse, a prayer book lying open at the Litany of the Saints ("Lord have mercy on us . . ."). On the branches of nearby trees were towels and shirts, a child's sunsuit, some underwear--all hanging lifelessly amid the grey, acrid smoke that curled up from the crater for hours afterward.

As investigators and 200 National Guard troops plowed through the area to collect bits and pieces of the wreckage, they were aware of the possibility that the cause of the crash might never be discovered. There were some similarities to the still unsolved crash of another Electra last September, in which a Braniff plane went to pieces in the air over Buffalo, Texas. In both the Tell City and Buffalo crashes, severe air turbulence had been reported by the airmen aloft in the vicinity. And although Electras have generally performed well, instances of metal fatigue have been reported; Lockheed Aircraft Corp. some time ago recommended mandatory inspection for cracks.

Theory. The possibility that the Tell City crash was caused by air turbulence and metal fatigue was a likely starting theory, but so was another one-that of another bomb explosion like the one that brought down a National Airlines DC-6B in North Carolina ten weeks ago (TIME, Jan. 18). Said CAB Safety Investigation Chief Philip Goldstein at week's end: "The structure was subjected to forces greater than it was designed for. We have definite evidence of a wing failure. Why this wing failure, I don't know."

Federal Aviation Agency Chief Elwood Quesada seemed hardly more certain as to the cause of the crash. But the circumstances more than justified him in his weekend action of ordering speed limits for the Electra.

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