Word: cabs
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...every fatal accident of any aircraft-is exhaustively investigated by the CAB's 171-man Bureau of Safety, which employs experts on practically everything having to do with flying. If even more expertise is needed, the bureau is empowered by law to call for help from all Government agencies, including the armed services, the Bureau of Standards and the FBI. Its technical detectives do not always "get their man." Yet, in the last ten years CAB has found the probable cause in 96% of all cases investigated...
When a big airplane crashes and the wreckage is badly chewed up, everyone goes to work-the plane and engine makers, the airline involved, representatives of the pilots' and engineers' unions. The CAB assigns eight groups of specialists to cover every phase of the flight. The structure is analyzed to see whether the plane was on fire before or after...
...result of the impact. Every one of the power-driven devices that work the ailerons, flaps and other controls is studied for before-or after-crash damage. The engines are always suspect, and even though they may be thoroughly smashed -along with the instruments-the CAB men can often tell what power they were putting out when the plane...
...maintenance records, from the time that the plane came off the production line, are studied for signs of bugs. All eyewitnesses are interrogated, and what they saw-the angles and distances-is recorded by surveyor's transit so that the CAB will be able to plot the flight path with great accuracy. If bodies of the crew are found, they are examined for alcohol, carbon-monoxide poisoning, heart attack, stroke, even bullet holes or other inflicted wounds. And all recorded conversations between crew and ground stations are minutely studied for clues...
Mice & Alcohol. Sometimes the investi gation takes years. The CAB has been working for 14 months on the mid-air collision between a United Air Lines DC-8 and a TWA Constellation, history's worst air disaster with 134 dead, has still not issued a report. At other times, the CAB pinpoints the cause rapidly. It took only three months to discover why a Constella tion of nonsked Imperial Airlines crashed last November near Richmond; the cap tain survived, and his testimony helped the CAB to uncover an incredible story of incompetence in the cockpit...