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When she first heard the aircraft, the motors were idling, which in her opinion was very unusual "because they generally keep working them as they come in for a landing." According to the witness, just as the airplane passed the building, the pilot "gunned the motors." The witness was particularly sure that the pilot gunned the motors because for the first time since she had been living in that apartment, the windows rattled when a plane was passing over the house to make a landing, although they always rattled when planes were taking off in that direction. By the time she turned around, the aircraft had passed over the building and out of her line of vision, and she next saw the aircraft as it settled to the ground after the impact.
Mr. Dee Davis, the husband of Mrs. Josephine Davis and an airplane mechanic working for American Airlines, was lying on the davenport in the sitting room of his apartment about to take a nap when he was attracted by the popping noise of idling engines. He stated that he next heard his wife scream and the sound of the crash, and jumped up in time to see the tail of the aircraft settling back at the point of impact. Mr. Davis stated that he did not hear the motors being gunned, and also that he could not recall any previous occasion when an aircraft came in for a landing on the northwest runway with the engines idling.
While the testimony of these witnesses is conflicting as to altitudes and distances estimated by them, it does serve to indicate generally the path followed by the airplane after it established contact northwest of the field. In addition, Mr. Walter Addems, Superintendent of Flight Operations for the Eastern Divisions of United, who had made
