Flying Accidents

With two fatal accidents involving the Harvard Flying club happening in the short space of ten days it appears that aviation has again taken a hard blow and intercollegiate flying circles especially will suffer. No parent seeing the blaring headlines of students crashing to the ground will readily become airminded to the extent that sonny will be allowed to go up in the near future. Until a fool-proof ship has been designed and put on the market, sonny must remain on the ground; while father uses the airplane in his business.

Accidents do seem to occur; but all accidents must be explained before people form their own theories about ships "blowing up" and "crashing in flames" or "falling apart in the air" and being "hurtled to the ground". Seeking some spectacular bit of news an ambitious news hound will feature anything and exploit it to the limits of his imagination. That is what readers crave.

The first of the two recent accidents in which a Harvard freshman was killed, involved the infraction of two primary fundamentals in which student pilots are drilled, which was the cause of his undoing. In the first place he had neglected to fasten his safety belt which would have no doubt saved his life since he insisted in landing downwind. For more than a half hour, according to his log record, the pilot has attempted to land his ship after he noticed his engine was not functioning properly. He tried to land in three different fields, and failing each time, attempted to stretch his glide on the third try into a fourth field. In each instance the young pilot was landing "downwind" which was just the opposite from what he had been taught.

Each time he decided he could not get into his chosen field this Harvard freshman had enough engine left to pull him out, so he tried again. Even with the half hour left in his engine he did the proper thing to seek a landing place; but he went at it wrong. More or less like driving your car off the ferry slip after the boat has left for New Jersey.

The most recent "Harvard Accident" did not involve any Harvard students. They had merely loaned their ship to the man who had sold it to the Flying Club. And this pilot pulled his ship into a sharp turn into the wind when he was at an attitude of 200 feet. The little ship slipped off and "spun in." The attitude was far from adequate for any such manoeuvre as a vertical bank.

The Department of Commerce publishes statistics to prove that over 80 percent of the fatal airplane accidents are due directly to human failure. We lament fatal accidents and condole grieving relatives: but we also point out that these are avoidable. Proper training, sane flying, and a bit of reflection will obviate most of these accidents: also due consideration will not always lay the blame on aviation as a dangerous pastime not to be indulged in by college undergraduates. The Dartmouth