National Affairs: First Clue

Wreckage of the United Airlines’ DC-6 which caught fire and crashed in Utah’s Bryce Canyon a fortnight ago gave up its first clue last week. Investigators discovered that the plane’s magnesium parachute flares had burned, guessed that they were responsible for the fierceness of the flames. No one knew yet how the fire started. But the Civil Aeronautics Board ruled that flares—designed to be dropped for night emergency landings and carried at a point where the wing joins the fuselage—must be removed from all DC-6 planes.