AVIATION: More on the Electro

Before a House subcommittee investigating the Lockheed Electra crash in Boston that took 62 lives, Braniff Airways Captain Trooper A. Shaw gave the ill-fated Electra a supreme accolade: “The Electra is the safest and most reliable airplane it has been my privilege to fly.” His testimony seemed in direct conflict with the views of his own airline, which only the day before in Dallas had filed a $2,400,000 suit against Lockheed Aircraft, the Electra’s maker, and General Motors, which supplied the plane’s Allison turboprop engines, charging that the Electra was “negligently and carelessly planned, designed, manufactured and inspected.” The suit was based on the 1959 crash of one of Braniff’s Electras near Buffalo, Texas, which was blamed on a structural failure of the wing root—the same failure that knocked another Electra from the sky.

The contradictory attitudes toward the Electra represented the ambiguous position of Braniff—and other airlines—in the face of rising concern about the plane. Egged on by its lawyers, Braniff was trying to collect damages for the crash. At the same time, Braniff was working with Northwest, National and American Airlines to counteract public worry over the plane’s safety, sending out “truth squads” of pilots who are sold on the Electra.

The airlines’ case for the Electra got a boost from both the Federal Aviation Agency and the Civil Aeronautics Board last week. Both agreed that the Electra crash in Boston was definitely caused by starlings that choked the plane’s engines. As if to underscore their findings, an Eastern Airlines DC-8 jet struck a flock of birds last week as it taxied for a take-off from Boston’s Logan International Airport, slammed to a stop on the runway only in the nick of time. Alarmed, Logan authorities established roving bands of shotgun-armed guards who have orders to shoot at birds on sight.