The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-04-15

 uniontown, Pa., may never be cleared up officially. But insiders know that the radio beam, on which the pilot set his course, had been reported off.
 A check on thirteen pilots of the Pennsylvania Airline, flying over almost the same route, showed that five times each of them was in danger due to faulty beam.
 This report probably never will get out. The commerce department will not put it out, because it operates the beam.
 Actually, the department may not have been at fault. Sometimes weather phenomena will swing beam twenty miles or so off, course. The pilot following it does not know when this occurs. As probably happened at UniontoWIl, he may let himself down blind, thinking he is at his destination. Cutting Mystery
 This was one cause of the crash in Missouri that killed Senator Bronson Cutting. The radio beam followed by the pilot was eighteen miles off. In this case, however, the commerce department was at fault. The beam was not properly operated by its air station.
 Even more tragic, its air station reported a ceiling of 1900 feet. Actually the fog was as thick as soup, on the ground. Automobiles had to crawl through it.
 What the commerce department never admitted, but which Sen- ate committee shortly will expose, is that the man supposed to be operating the beam and sending out weather reports was out with a woman while a young substitute was doing his work.
 Not only did the commerce de- partment hush this up, BUT AFTERWARD THEY PRO- NOTED THE OPERATOR. Arkansas Mystery
 Insiders also knew there was no real mystery about the plane which crashed in the swamps of Arkansas last winter, killing seventeen people.
 Reports were circulated of a morphine addict, mysterious bullet hole. But there was nothing to this. The explanation was fairly simple.
 The hop between Memphis and Little Reckon which the plane was flying when it crash ed is short. In making it, pilots are tempted to fly close to the ground. If they attain altitude they lose time. This is because the commerce department speci- flies that no plane can lose alti- tude faster than 400 feet a Tnin- ute. Thus to come down 10000 feet requires twenty-five min- utes.
 Explanation of the Arkansas crash is that the plane was fly-- ing low. Some witnesses estimated its height at around 100 feet. The lights on the gas tanks at the time of the crash showed that one was empty and it was time for the pilot to transfer from one to the other. The experts figure that he was reaching down tinkering with his tank regulators when an air pocket shot the plane into the trees.
 But the commerce depart ment was reticent regarding hn- portant details.
 The day before its report was made public, c. R. Smith, head of American Airways conferred with Eugene Vidal, Air Commerce Director.
 Bomb Mystery
 Also there was the mysterious crash in the mountains of New York eighteen months ago, when there were reports of a passenger carrying 8 package supposed to contain nitroglycerine or some other high explosive.
 Actually, aviation experts say that the plane was new, had not been sufficiently tested, and that vibration caused the wing to come off.
 Beam Experimentation
 The new radio beam, which probably caused the accident at Uniontown, is an attempt to rem- edy the defects of the old beam.
 The old beam had to be inter- rupted whenever weather reports were sent out, in order to use the same channel. Thus pilot might be ready for a landing, and be forced to cruise around in the air for fifteen or twenty minutes, waiting for weather reports to stop so he could get the beam again.
 This was one of the causes of the delay to Senator Cuttings plane at Kansas City. It had to wait for the plane ahead to get weather reports and land. By that time the weather at Kan sas City had become too bad, and the plane had to head for Kirksvilie, Mo.
 The new radio beam is an at tennnt t0 send weathpr rarOrts