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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 1, 1957)
o o o rOtniTEKW MZDFOR3 IOREOOW) MAIL THIBtTOB Monday, July t, 195' Anniversary of Grand Canyon Air Crash Notes Progress Made in Safely (b sostBi jr. sTEBtma Unitcto) Pitt CoraMpondent One yfar fgo Sa ardsy, two Riant airliners bisected an ar.gje of death over the Gran Canyon. In a lew sickening econris' 128 lives were snuffed out in history's worst commerc(a avia tion disaster. In the length of ,hne it ikes a football team to run off a play; two magnificent transport planes were imashed into twisted rub ble. And a stunned nation was made suddenly aware of a gi gantic air safety problem. brand Canyon was the im possible" accident. The airliners collided in rea sonably clear weather, at a high altitude and in literally empty air space. The lesson was grimly clear: If It could happen over the Grand Cayon it was far more likely to happen again in the congested air approaches to the big cities. 10 Months of Investigation - The Civial Aeronautics board spent almost 10 months investi gating why Transworld Airlin's nuper-Constellation and United Airlige'i DC-7 collided. In lis final report the CAB Mid the "probable cause was that the pilots did not see each other in time" which was like faying the collision was acci dental. But the CAB went on to list a number of factors that singly or in combination may have "blind ed" the pilots. These included: Limited cockpit visibilty. Intervenng clouds that pre vented the pilots from seeing the other aircraft in time to maneu ver away. Preoccupation with normal cockpit duties. Physiological limits to hu man vision. Insufficiency of en route air traffic advisory information due to inadequate facilities and lack of personnel in air traffic con trol. Preoccupation with unrelat ed cockpit duties such as trying to provide passengers with a more scenic view of the canyon. Factors Discarded This possible sightseeing fac tor has been discarded by most air safety experts because of the altitude (21.000 feet) and the clouds and haze present. But the other suggested Sac tors added up to an indictment of the air traffic system as it existed on June 30, 1956. The TWA and United planes came together because their pilots didn't see each other in time but that visual failure was merely the culmination of many weaknesses in the system under which the airmen were operating. Both planes were flying "off airways" in air space uncon trolled by federal traffic control centers. This was because the controlled airways were not as direct. But In choosing to fly the uncontrolled routes, the pilots were made solely respon sible for avoiding any other traffic. ti'Oi frm uosaob ii sJtfnen 8 lower tltituae. had been 2L?J?J!ZLZ!2tJL.'Ft Hajiveft permission to climb 1,000 trr timM aate? tim fctt bov the ciouds. In d'jinfi ZZZJUiZZI&SL m ".'"SmWt o, he had to reach 21.000 feet a i n " 1 u iuuc ut lnr.edu DC-?. TWA was told tnat to "ted was at that altitude bat the undermanned ATC cen ter aloof the route were too busy to warn Cnited. The ceo ujsr had their hands full moni toring traffic on controlled air ways; they could not accept re sponsibility for planes in uncon trolled sir space. Da41y pattern Sst Thus, the deadly pattern was set. Insufficient federal airways, inadequate air traffic control fa cilities and personnel, obsolete regulations that ignored the vis ual handicaps of pilots, and two airliners unknowingly approach ing their fatal rendezvous at 300 miles an hour. That was Grand Canyon one year ago Saturday. Has anything been done about thoje conditions in (te;12 months since? These are the poijtiv ac complishments: 1. As quickly aji possible the airlines are shiftin to instru ment flight rules both M high altitudes and in the more con gested airways. All carriers have- voluntarily gone to "positive separation" for all flights above 18,000 feet, which means they must fly on. federally-designated airways under the monitoring and guidance of air traffic con trol centers. Effective July 1, every flight above 9.500 feet in tfti heavily travelled "golden triangle" be tween New York, Washington anChicagmust fly IFR in con trolled air space. And eventual ly, every commercially-scheduled flight will be IFR from takeoff to landing. 2. The Civil Aeronautics Ad ministration, which operates the air traffic control system, is al most ready to control all civil and military flights above 24.000 feet. By next January this floor will be lowered to 15,000 feet. CAA has increased the number of one-way airways, particularly between New York-Washington and New York-Chicago. It also has designated 12 direct trans continental "super-skyways" for safe separation and control of coast-to-coast high-speed flights, including the forthcoming jejs. Five-Year Expansion 3. CAA, with congressional blessing, has compressed its original five-year expansion of the federal airways system into three years, and stepped up spending on this system from S246 million to at least $810 mil lion. Mora Equipment 4. From June 30, 1956, to last May 30, CAA added nearly 7,000 milei of electronically-monitored airways to its system. It put into commission millions of dol lars worth of radio and radar equipment both along the air ways and at airports themselves. It also recruited 2,200 new air traffic controllers and spent $9 million on 23 long-range radar sets with first deliveries sched uled for August. 5. CAA in the past 12 months has spent another $9 million on improved communications equip ment for more efficient voice traffic between pilots and con trollers. t. CAA has revised its regula tions to rut down the visual flight rulee under which pilots must beer complete responsi bility for avoiding other traffic. IFR is now given pilots, only when they request it: formerly CAA controllers initiated IFR restrictions. 7. Both CAA and the airlines, with pilots' cooperation, are re stricting the "1,000 on top" clear ances which played a role in the Grand Canyon crash. Pilots must now fly at least 2,000 ieet above the clouds. 8. Congress and the aviation industry have been handed a massive blueprint for future handling of air traffic, drawn up by President Eisenhower's special aviation facilities plan ning commisson. It calls for a temporary three-year airways modernization board which would test new air traffic con trol system and equipment. It details elaborate future plans for traffic control at major airports and recommends a new, com pletely independent federal aviation agency. These are the positive .accom plishments that followed Grand Canyon. Bp,t they do not gjv the whole picture. Air force Demaeds Ban Some of the government's airways Expansion pjans have been blocked by conflicts with the military over use of tfir space. Sen. A. S. (Mike) Mon roney (D-Okla.) arned recently that military "encroachment" of civilian air Wpace nuy warrant a congressional investigation. For eSample, CAA pla-ns to establish a direct, controlled air way across the Grand Canyon collided with an Air Force de mandthat the area be banned to commercial planes. The con ttbversy is still being thrashed out. As of now the CAA's pro posed 12 super-skyways for transcontinental flights are be ing threatened py the military blocking out sections for air training and gunnery practice. During the recent naval maneu vers which President Eisenhow er witnessed off the Virginia coas airlines were forced to detour more than 200 flights in a 27-hour period. Despite tht current drive toward safer air traffic control, near-misses take place daily. A recent report to Congress re vealed that aircraft are involved in two near-misses a day while Hying over densely populated areas. The Civil Aeronautics Board reported 452 near-colli sions in the last four months of 1956 101 of them occurring over the largest metropolitan areas. ' Last month, the aWation in dustry itself ruefully admitted that two years of research have failed to develop anti-collision warning devices. Nearly 70 com panies have been trying to per fect anti-collision or proximity warning equipment without success. Could Grand Canyon happen again? Chances Believed Reduced Government and aviation in- dusfty officials believe the chances have been reduced con siderably, thanks to better con trol of high-flying traffic and the virtual elimination ef visual fiisht rules for such planes. But the eollijion danger itself is still haunting pilots and air line executives. Traffic in con gested airport areas gets heavier by the day. And no matter how much improved control goes into commercial airline operations, there is no present way to keep military and private aircraft out of the way all the time. Many of the reported near misses have involved military and private planes brushing close to airliners, with the for mers' presence unsuspected by air traffic control centers. The future blueprint mapped by White House air safety plan ners would lump all military, commercial and private planes under a single control system. But the target date for this blue print is 1975 and as one vet eran pilot puts it, "a lot of col lisions can take place in the next few years." Grand Canyon accomplished two mejor goals: It galvanized Congress into voting funds for which federal aviation egencies end the air lines hid been pleading for years. It also resulted in some badly- needed government-industry co operation in solving air traffic problems. Taught Soma Lessons Like virtually every air crash, it taught some lessons and drove home old ones for which 128 persons had to die. Like every air accident, it cannot be summed up in mere statistics. It touched hundreds of homes with personal tragedy that a short year has failed to ease. The families of the dead pilots, for example, are still liv ing on the West Coast. They are reasonably well-off financially, although one of the companies had to take up a collection to pay off a co-pilot's mortgage. Three damage suits totaling a half-million dollars have been filed agakist the government and the two airlines. ' More are ex pected, now that the CAB's final report has been published. The crash apparently had no j affect on the public's confidence in air travel. In the six months following June 30, 1956. 13 168.000 persons flew domestic airlines. That was about two million more than in the enro parable period the preceding year. Much of the wreckage of the red and white Constellation and the blue and silver DC-7 is still at the scene. Investigators took what they could for laboratoy inspection, but some of the parte were left where they fell on that warm, hazy day in June. Thry will stay thsre rusting and forgotten mute testimony to man's imperfections while overhead will thunder airliaers I happened re ea ago gtue on flights made safer by what ' day. LOANS TO FAY 3ljLtS? Need cash for thj bills you owe? Oregon Finjice 8 tli$ pl4g to go. 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The Grants Pass girl is the daughter of Mrs. Maxine John ston. She and 10 other children were taken to Mattson park, seven miles downstream from Grants Pass, Saturday with the permission of their parents. Authorities said several of the older children in the party were splashing in the river about one half mile downstream from its confluence with the Applegate river. Cheryl was picking up pebbles and carrying them to a picnic table from the river when last seen. Searchers turned out in droves and at 2 a.m. Saturday there were still an estimated 500 per sons with flashlights and lan terns combing the heavily wood ed country along the river. HERE'S CHIC-INSURANCE FOR HIGH STYLE SUMMER COTTONS IV j vo sr.? 1 . -.MA'I V mm SCHEMA tliatlSSSS CI..K.T.C: oIBDcBWhlikf Or CLcSANcb 60 fiOOf. oiX GWlN NEUIitAl irlRITS. Man Dies in Fire Al Walli Willi Hotel Walla Walla M Richard j E. Herndon, 68, died in a fire which swept the Columbia hotel here early Sunday. 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