Transport Safety

Because the crash that killed Knute Rockne and seven others in Kansas last month (TIME, April 13) has yet to be fully explained (beyond the simple fact that a wing of the Fokker plane pulled off) the Department of Commerce last week took drastic action. It suspended all Fokker trimotors of the 1929 type from passenger service until experts of the Department and the Fokker company make a thoroughgoing inspection of each craft. Said Assistant Secretary of Commerce Young: "No reflection of any kind upon Fokker aircraft or its basic design or original construction. The only point involved is the actual maintenance of the ships." (Inspection of Fokker wings is difficult because of their plywood construction.)

Of the 35 planes withdrawn from service, 15 were operated by American Airways, others by Pan American, Transcontinental & Western Air, and United Air Lines.

If a man were to fly 10,000 mi. annually in regularly scheduled U. S. transport planes, he might suffer a crackup in his 46th year; might be killed in the 668th. Were the same man to cover the same distance in random flights (instruction, sightseeing, joyhopping, et al.) he might anticipate an accident every five years, prepare for death in the 35th. These chances are based on the civil air accident record for July-December 1930 published last week by the Department of Commerce.

All civil aircraft flew 76,545,035 mi. in the six months, a decrease from the same period in 1929 caused by a falling off in private flying. There were 1,163 accidents, one for every 67,536 mi. of flight. But only 47 of those accidents involved transport planes. Fatal accidents in miscellaneous flights were 160, resulting in 258 deaths. In the three fatal crashes of transport planes, three pilots and two passengers were killed.

Conclusions: Flying over established routes is 51% safer than a year ago; "miscellaneous" operations 32% more dangerous; flying in general, 21% less safe.

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