Page:CAB Accident Report, TWA Flight 891.pdf/13

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It 18 presde that, in the case of all Victims, the injuries from burning came after those of a traumatic nature.

It is presumed also that the members of the crew as well as the passengers were still alive when the plane came in contact with land.

It is not possible either to state definitely whether some of the persons on the plans may have suffered injuries while the plane was still in tne air but falling. The cause of the almost instantaneous death of both the passengers and the crew was a complex traumatism which produced multiple internal fractures and injuries (traumatic death), followed immediately by carbonization causal by the flames of the burning wreckage of the plane.

In this specific case it is likely that death occurred, for all persons, instantaneously, on the ground.

The conclusions of the autopsies and pertinent medical-legal examination may be considered valid also for the other members of the crew.

The autopsies showed no evidence whatsoever of any intrinsic or extrinsic elements in the bodies, such as the presence of pro-existing organic changes, or the presence of carbon monoxide, or a sudden illness of the pilots followed by innnsdjate death, or the alcoholic [intoxication] factor with resulting erroneous handling of the plane, etc., which might lead to the belief that, in so far as the crew is concerned, there were other causes of death besides the aforementioned complex traumatism.

Inn—-_-

CHAPTER VI was (a) General weather conditions

At 12:00 noon on June 26, 1959, the situation over land showed the following features:

(1) A high-pressure zone, with peak around 7h° North and 05° East, attending from the Scandinavian regions to East Germany, Poland and the Carpatian zones;

(2) A high-pressure zone (anticyclon from the Azores) with peak around 33° North and .-3b° west, extending up to the French-Iberian Peninsula Atlantic zone and, to the South, extending over North Africa. as far as Tumsia;

(3) A wide law-pressure zone on the North Atlantic with lowest around 55° North and 20° West;

(4) Another low—pressure zone over the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor;