Certain Death

Last week, somewhere in the Pacific, two U. S. naval planes collided. Six men died. At Opa Locka, Fla., a naval training plane fell out of control, the pilot's parachute did not open, and he was killed. An Army Air Corps lieutenant crashed, fatally, in the Panama Canal Zone. An Army fighter crashed near Mitchel Field, L. I., another Army plane had a forced landing near Buffalo. The pilots of both planes survived.

In the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, at Army Air Corps headquarters in Washington, men marked down these crashes, these deaths. The inevitable was happening: as more & more planes and pilots took the air, the average rate (per 1,000 hours flown) of crashes and fatalities was going up. The press noted the increase with alarm, assumed that something was wrong, taxed the Army and Navy with the blame. Last fortnight the Air Corps's veteran Brigadier General Herbert A. Dargue called in a picked group of correspondents, told them to expect more crashes, more deaths. Last week the War Department made his information public.

General Dargue has been flying since 1913. He pioneered Army use of hydroplanes that year, led a famous flight around South America (Dec. 21, 1926-May 2, 1927), at 54 is still flying hot ships. He explained that better planes, training, supervision had steadily cut the Air Corps accident rate--until lately. In 1921 there was a death for approximately every 1,000 flying hours; in 1940 only one for every 10,000 hours. From July 1, 1939 to June 30, 1940 the Air Corps had 88 deaths in 46 crashes. From last July 1 to Dec. 1, there were 85 deaths; in January, 19; in February, 28. The rate was rising. And, said General Dargue with sad certainty, it would continue to rise: the country could expect as many as 150 more young men to die in Army crashes by June's end.

Anyone could understand that the total of deaths was bound to increase (plans to train 30,000 Army pilots a year were revealed last week). But how about the rate? General Dargue could explain that, too. Lowest rate (one death per 40,000 flying hours) was still among students at the Air Corps schools, where close supervision kept fatalities and injuries down. But even there the proportion of thoroughly experienced instructors was bound to drop, as the number of students increased. The course had been shortened from a year to seven and a half months. Graduated cadets necessarily went out to their units with less training than their predecessors had before the great expansion started. And the first 750 flying hours, when heady youngsters went into faster and heavier ships, were always the hardest, resulted in three times more accidents than the next 1,250 hours. Said General Dargue: "As long as the human element is the human element there will be accidents. When an emergency makes it necessary to train men rapidly, the experience curve will temporarily drop, the accident curve rise. It is regrettable, but there is nothing which can replace experience."

General Dargue knew that future training crashes would be frequent, spectacular. As new pilots went into bigger ships with bigger crews, the number of deaths per crash was bound to rise. The Air Corps would like all the pilots of its four-engined Flying Fortresses to have at least 2,000 flying hours. Future bomber pilots will be lucky if they have had 500. Lone fighter pilots have their troubles and dangers, too. A young pilot recently asked General Dargue how many gauges, dials, other gadgets there were in the cockpit of his pursuit ship. Dargue guessed: 35 or 40. On a later flight, he counted 86 separate uses for his hands, eyes, feet.

The Air Corps can and does penalize the reckless, preach care, cull out the congenitally unfit. But it cannot be overcareful. A pilot who never takes a chance may lose his life and plane in combat. Military pilots must learn to fly on instruments, in all weathers ("when the birds are grounded"), in & out of strange airports, with no radio controls. And in learning, some die. Said the War Department, releasing General Dargue's gloomy forecast: "Let us face this situation with a calm realization that preparation for war takes its toll as well as war itself and that there is no more hazardous profession at arms than that which the combat flier has elected to follow."

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