Off the Schedule

When an Imperial Airlines Constellation crashed near Richmond, Va., last November killing 74 Army recruits (TIME, Nov. 17), the resulting clamor touched off a long overdue investigation of the nation's nonscheduled airlines, which last year flew 1.5 billion passenger miles v. 39.8 billion for the scheduled lines. Burgeoning after World War II as ex-military pilots bought dirt-cheap surplus cargo planes, the nonskeds grew like weeds and were treated with an air of benevolent indulgence by the federal regulatory agencies. Politicians championed the fare-cutting nonskeds as the little guys who were fighting the big guys, e.g., the scheduled airlines; in 1958 Congress passed a bill which, in effect, gave the nonskeds a major share of the job of hauling military personnel within the continental U.S.

A Second Look. The Richmond crash changed the political climate, and when they really began to look, investigators from the Federal Aviation Agency and the Civil Aeronautics Board found disturbing violations among many of the nonskeds: some mechanics were writing maintenance reports to show repairs and checkups that were never done; pilots were flying more than the legal eight hours at a stretch; flight crew training standards were minimal. In addition, non-sked business practices were sometimes downright dubious. President Airlines, which operated a DC-6B that crashed last year off Shannon, killing 83 passengers, got into the business by buying the air carrier certificate of a dormant nonsked.

Statistically, it turned out to be more than 30 times as dangerous to fly on a nonsked as on a scheduled airline; in 1961 there were nine fatalities per 100 million passenger miles on nonskeds v. .29 fatalities on scheduled lines.

In an attempt to bring the nonskeds under tighter federal supervision, Congress two months ago passed a new bill requiring all nonskeds to re-apply for certification to the CAB, to carry liability insurance and to maintain a healthier financial status. Meanwhile, nonskeds have been dying right and left. Of the 31 nonskeds flying at the time of the Richmond crash, five lines, including President, simply did not re-apply for certification; four others, including Imperial, were grounded for flunking FAA safety tests. The remaining lines last week began appearing before the CAB to plead for recertification.

A Matter of Economics. To the astonishment of many aviation experts, the CAB chose to pass over past safety and maintenance violations to concentrate on economic questions. The theory, as outlined by one CABman, sounded like a textbook social worker's solution to juvenile delinquency: the nonskeds' financial hardships have spawned slipshod maintenance practices. So the CAB was looking for signs of financial health and was content to take FAA's word that the applicants satisfied safety requirements. But such assurances from the FAA are hardly reassuring; it had said before their disastrous crashes that Imperial and President were safe.

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