The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-03-12

will hc about.
 Things Congress will be jawinl about most will be based on tht belief that the series of five com mercial airline crashes slrlce Aug 3l, 1940-when 25 were killed neal Lovetsville, Va, to end a l7-montl no-accidsnt period-might not hay; happened If the old Civil Aeronau. tics Authority, Civil Aeronautics Ad. ministration and Air Safety Boart had not been combined and reor. ganized under the Department o Commerce last July 1. More speci. fically, 1t is the critics belief tha' the old independent Air Safety Board should not have been madt 8 mere department of the new ] Civil Aeronautics Board, and 6 further point is made that c. A B., as now constituted. Is too much It's own prosecuting attorney, judge jury and police officer.
 FEW CHANGES
 IN PERSONNEL
 On the other side of the picture the reasons given for putting through the reorganization were that the three former agencies were always quarreling with each other, and the internal rows of the old Air Safety Board finally made reorganization necessary by presi- dsntial order. Congress just missed disappearing the reorganization by a narrow seven-vote margin in the Senate.
 You can take your pick as to the merits of these two points of view, but the facts are that while the Department of Commerce pro- vldes shelter, printing and other routine chores for today's o. A. B., Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones has no control over It's Budget, personnel, conduct or rul- ings. The board is appointed by the President and 1t reports to Congress.
 Furthermore, the changes In personnel of the three agencies, when combined into one, were relatively few. Out of total per- sonnel of 5000, there have been fewer than 50 resignations of em- ployes other than clerks since last July. Out of the 50, only six re- signed for personal reasons.
 WRECK FRAGMENTS
 INSPECTED
 c. A. B. today IS managed by a five-man board with Harllee Branch at its head. Under the board Jerome Lederer runs the new safety bureau, whose functions are to study accidents and make recommended tions for the administrative board to carry out. The safety bureau has made a dozen such recommen- dations since the reorganization, in- cluding requirements for carrying paragraphs to record altitude in fight, changing of airport landing regulations, prohibiting the carrying of passengers in the emergency jump" seaots Most important of the boards new safety regulations, to be made soon, will change all ra- dio direction beams to high fre- quency wave which will not fade, get off course or be affected by sta- tic. All these regulations are the result of lessons learned from in- vestigation of recent accidents.
 The safety bureau now has a field staff of IA investigators and six consultants, and of course says 1t should have more. The administra- tive section has 400 inspectors of planes, operations, maintenance, ra- dio, pilots, and factories.
 In the Atlanta crash investiga- ton, local police officers were called in as soon as the crash was report ed, to stand guard over every frag- ment of the wreckage till 1t could be photographed and sketched. An investigator and three technical as- sistants supervised. The pieces were then sent to technical labor atories, such as Bureau of Stand- ards, for minute examination to dis cover breaks or failures. All these reports were then gone over by the analysis section of the safety bur- eau staff.
 ANYONE CAN
 RAISE QUESTION
 The hearings, in Atlanta, are held before G. Grant Mason, member of the c. A. B. who is a private pi- lot and an aviation authority in his own right. He is the judge, jury and chief investigator. Everybody with anything to say about the crash is summoned. Airlines repre- sentatives, pilots, ground personnel, mechanics, dispatchers, weather ex- ! lAa4.te A ls...