The Daily Alaska empire., 1946-12-20
PILOT SAVES
 MANY LIVES,
 QUI(kA(TI0N
Accident Unprecedented in American Commer-
 CiaI Air Travel

ABERDEEN. Md, Dec. 20-Split- second reactions by two pilots were credited today with saving the lives of 85 passengers and crew mem bers of two Miami-bound airliners which collided 1000 feet in the air near here in an accident unpre- cedented in American commercial air travel.
 None of the passengers suffered so much as scratch. although both planes were damaged in the collis 1 ion which occurred in clear wealth CT shortly after dark last night. The co-pilot of one, big, four engined DC-4 Eastern Airlines craft carrying 56 passengers, said he saw the other, a two-engined Univer- sal Airlines CAT, approaching from the left three or four miles north of Aberdeen. He pulled his ship up at the last instant and scraped over the top of the Universal plane, Eastern officials said
 Ait CO-pflOt. IN IoAONii. bi isAi1iiAi, said he had just a second or two" in which to avert disaster. The pilot of this plane, J. B. Kuhn, also of Miami, told reporter, Brown saved the day"
 Hole Ripped
 A three by-five-foot hole was rip ped in the tail section of the larg- CT plane, while the Universal liner, carrying 9 passengers-and, ,as crew of three on charter flight. had a hole driven into the upper portion of the fuselage, it's escape hatch wrenched free and it's radio and hydraulic system knocked out of commission.
 Despite the damage, Henry Nor lis, of Cambridge, Mass. pilot of the Universal ship, brought it down safely at the Aberdeen proving ground field, while the Eastern plane was landed uneventfully by Kuhn before waiting crash-wagons and fire-engines at National Air port, WaSn1ngton, U. C.
 Overtaken In Air
 The -engined DC-4, cruising at about 230 miles an hour, appar- ently had overtaken the slower air craft.
 The Universal plane, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico, via Miami, left Newark Airport at 5:08 P. M EST.
 The Eastern airliner departed at a scheduled nonstop run to Miami.
 Occupants of both planes, mostly vacationists and business men, re- ported little if any confusion at the time of their narrow escape, and most said they had been unaware of the extent of their damage. All, however, had lavish praises for the crew members.
 One grateful survivor of the East ern plane, Ben J. SlutZky, of Ellen vile. N r., announced he w=5 pre- senting $500 to the crew and invit- cd other passengers to a "surviv- CTS party" at Miami night club
 No Panic
 Miss Joan Cotton, "A year-old East Orange, N. J., stewardess on the Universal plane, said:
 Tt nearly tossed me through the roof. One passenger. woman, started to scream and then stifled it, but that was as close as we came to panic.
 Most of the passengers were al- ternately praying and asking ques- tions. I fastened their safety belts and kept saying, everything is all right I tried to think of some thing else to say, but that was all that came out.
 Prayer Of Thanks
 When we finally landed. and the passengers saw the big hole in the front section, some of them started praying all over again-and this time they were prayers of thanks"
 Officials of the Civil Aeronautics Board. who questioned the EAL crew in Washington for hours after they landed, said it was the first time in American commercial air history such an accident had oc- cured between two planes headed ! in the same direction. | Federal safety regulations regu- lations require planes flying in op- posite directions to maintain diff ferent attitudes, but planes on the same heading, although separated by time intervals, fly on the same levels