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whether something came off in the air or as a 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 hit.
All 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.
Yet there are times when the CAB's sleuths clear the records of suspect pilots.
When a DC-3 crashed in New York's East River in 1947 and alcohol was found in the pilots' brains, the obvious conclusion was that the flyers had been drinking.
Still unsure, the CAB asked Yale Medical School's alcoholism experts to decide whether alcohol can get into a man's brain from the water in which he is drowned.
After drowning a number of rats in sea water spiked with alcohol, the Yale experts reported that considerable alcohol indeed entered their brains. The dead crewmen could have got their alcohol after the accident from smashed deicing tanks. The bureau vindicated them by reporting that the accident was caused by engine failure.
Flares & Heaters. One of the most ingenious campaigns was the 1947 study of a DC-6 crash near Bryce Canyon, Utah. Several minutes before the end, the pilot reported a fire burning out of control in the baggage compartment, and that his plane was coming apart in the air. Gathering the wreckage, which was strewn over 28 miles of rugged country, the CAB's investigators noticed traces of barium ash on some of the fragments. Since the only barium that could have burned was in flares carried in the baggage compartment, the bureau at once ordered all DC-6s to remove their flares. Eighteen days later, another DC-6 had a baggage-compartment fire, near Gallup, N. Mex., but with no explosive flares to feed it the crew got it under control and the airplane landed safely.