Smithville to Nashville. The last radio message from the flight at 0205 gave its position as 4000 feet over Pulaski, Virginia. The evidence would indicate that between this time of 0205 and the time the flight would have proceeded on an instrument flight plan at Tri-City, the airplane had crashed into the mountain while in normal cruising flight on its normal southwesterly course. This, taken together with the testimony of the passengers that the flight was in rain or clouds prior to the crash, would indicate that the Captain had neither turned the flight around nor proceeded to a safe altitude which would adequately clear the terrain existing along the Pulaski-Tri-City leg of the flight.[1] In the absence of difficulties not disclosed by the evidence, it appears that the flight was being conducted contrary to the Civil Air Regulations. [2] In other words, either an emergency had occurred of which no evidence could be found or else the pilot was using poor judgement in not having adequate terrain clearance. Testimony of some other company pilots disclosed their unfamiliarity with the Civil Air Regulations pertaining to minimum altitudes for night contact flight and the procedure for changing from contact to instrument flight in the event an instrument altitude had not been previously requested or assigned.
Further evidence disclosed that it had been customary for the company to dispatch night contact flights through this region at the 4000-foot altitude although the region cannot be flown at 4000 feet if a 1000-foot clearance is to be maintained over all terrain for 5 miles to either side of the center of the airway. There is evidence which indicates that the Civil Aeronautics Administration, due to a shortage of personnel, had not kept a close enough check on the company's operating and dispatching procedures. It may be noted here that Flight 7, which took off from Washington shortly after Flights 9, flew at 6000 feet although cleared to fly at 8000 feet over the same terrain. The company's approved minimum instrument altitude throughout this whole region is 7000 feet.
- ↑ Airway Traffic Control assigns altitude levels for instrument flights for the purpose of flight separation only and does not accept responsibility of flight control in respect to terrain clearance.
- ↑ CAB. 61. 7401 NIGHT. "No scheduled air carrier aircraft shall be flown at an altitude of less than 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle located within a horizontal distance of 5 miles from the center of the course intended to be flown, except during take-offs and landings or when operating in accordance with specific procedures for definite localities approved by the Administrator."
