AERONAUTICS: Protagonist for Silence

• Share

Clarence Marshall Young, assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, advanced last week at the Hotel McAlpin, in Manhattan, weighty departmental reasons for airplane accident silence. Said he: ". . . Sole purpose in investigating accidents is to determine causes and promote aviation by what we learn . . . obtaining all our information from voluntary sources. We cannot compel persons to come forward with it." The inference Secretary Young implied was, that official silence is essential for such cooperation; that his department did not choose to fix a cause for the accident only to have legal procedure haled in and departmental records opened to rifling by shyster lawyers. To promote aviation with knowledge gained after accidents, Secretary Young pointed two instances: the September crash of the T. A. T. liner on Mt. Taylor in New Mexico resulted in recommendation that the course be changed; the January crash of the T. A. T.-Maddux liner between San Diego and Los Angeles resulted in a rule requiring air transport pilots to land if forced lower than 500 feet (TIME, Feb. 3).