AVIATION: Comet on the Bench

When the second Comet I airliner in three months crashed off Italy, all England felt the blow to British national pride. But it found consolation in the sleek new Comets II and III hatching in De Havilland Aircraft Co.’s factories. Trumpeted Lord Beaverbrook’s Evening

Standard: “Whatever doubts may exist about Comet I, there can be none about its successor . . . The aim must now be to speed production … to ensure that as many as possible of these magnificent aircraft will be in service as soon as possible.” Last week Britain found that doubts did exist about Comets II and III. De Havilland suspended all work on the new jets until it found the reason for the Comet I crashes.

Home from Ceylon. The decision was a bitter one for De Havilland. Of the 33 Comet II’s (worth $46 million) on order, three were already finished and being test-flown in preparation for delivery to British airlines in four months. Fourteen more were more than half finished. Production was just starting on eleven orders (worth $25 million) for Comet III, with three of the planes ticketed for Pan American World Airways, the only U.S. carrier ever to order foreign aircraft. But De Havilland had no choice. In the last two years, four of the 21 Comet I’s in service have crashed, killing 112 people. No one knows what the trouble is, and no one could be sure that it would not also turn up in Comets II and III.

Last week the last Comet overseas flew home from Ceylon without passengers, cruising at a relatively low 20,000 ft. De Havilland, which had first thought of sending test pilots aloft as human guinea pigs to duplicate the Italian crash conditions, has decided against it. Instead, it put mechanics to work taking apart two complete BOAC Comets, checking every part from trim tabs to turbine blades. At the R.A.F. test station at Farnborough, other experts examined the salvaged wreckage of the first Italian crash last January, including all four engines.

So far, De Havilland has reported no clues. But there were dozens of possibilities. British airmen were inclined to discount the theory first advanced that a flying turbine blade had caused the wing fuel tanks to explode, since the last Comet to crash had special armor between engines and tanks (TIME, March 22). Most think it more likely that either the kerosene-type fuel, which becomes highly volatile at high altitudes, exploded, or that vapor from a leaking hydraulic line might have been touched off by a spark. Others guessed that the big jet’s power-operated controls, which give the pilot no “feel” of the plane, might have let him accidentally put the ship into a maneuver that ripped off the wings.

Plane Shortage. Whatever the reason, De Havilland’s troubles are a serious blow to Britain’s brave experiment to capture the lead in jet transports. The grounding of the Comets leaves British Overseas Airways with only 43 planes, half U.S.-built, for its worldwide routes. BOAC has been forced to close down its South American routes, thus losing $280,000 a week in passenger revenues. To build up its fleet, the company was trying to borrow Lockheed Constellations from Australia’s Quantas Empire Airways, was reportedly talking about buying new piston-powered Constellations direct from Lockheed. In Australia, Quantas and British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines, which have three Comets on order, were rumored to be thinking of canceling the order, replacing the jets with slower U.S. prop transports. Japan has already asked De Havilland to postpone delivery of two Comet II’s ordered by Japan Airlines.

For competing U.S. planemakers, De Havilland’s decision means that the worst of the pressure was off in the race for the transport market. Boeing will put the first U.S. transport model, its four-jet 707, in the air next month, is pushing work ahead of schedule, and Douglas also has a plane past the blueprint stage. Said a De Havilland executive: “We know we’re in a crisis. Even if the cause of the crashes were found tomorrow, we would have lost between four and six months . . . But until it is, we won’t go back to making Comets.”