Talk:TWA Flight 6

Sources that would be useful in expanding this article
The following discusses useful sources I have found on the Bronson Cutting crash and its political fallout.

The first two sources, which are secondary ones, are a pair of books written in the 1970s by the same author, who at the time was an official historian with the FAA; they include extensive lists of references. (I don't know of any other secondary studies of the Cutting crash.) Both are freely available in scanned form via HathiTrust.

The first book, of about a hundred pages, is dedicated specifically to the crash, its political background, and its effects.


 * HathiTrust catalog entry, University of Minnesota scan, University of Michigan scan.
 * HathiTrust catalog entry, University of Minnesota scan, University of Michigan scan.

(A second edition of this book was published in 1984, but I can't find an online version of that edition, and I don't know if it differs significantly from the first edition.)

The second book is a broader work covering the first period of regulation of U.S. civil aviation by the Department of Commerce. The Cutting crash and its Congressional investigation, which occurred near the end of this period, are covered in Chapter 11 of the book.


 * HathiTrust catalog entry, University of Michigan scan (at Chapter 11), University of California scan (at Chapter 11).
 * HathiTrust catalog entry, University of Michigan scan (at Chapter 11), University of California scan (at Chapter 11).

(Hathitrust also has a 1989 reprint of this book with a new preface, but this was published by Smithsonian Institution Press and isn't freely available.)

The other sources are primary ones; these include the Department of Commerce's accident report and related documents, as well as the records of the Copeland Committee hearings and a preliminary report published by the committee.

The Department of Commerce documents are available from several locations: the "Investigation of Aircraft Accidents 1934–1965" section in the Online Digital Special Collections of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the Digital Library of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Aviation Safety and Security Archives, and a section of the July 15, 1935 issue of the Air Commerce Bulletin, published by the Bureau of Air Commerce, which is archived at HathiTrust. It's probably easiest to use the HathiTrust version for citations, but I want to describe the other sites first.

The DOT site has a separate web page for each Department of Commerce document. Unfortunately, the web site is set up so that, for specific page links to work, you must first follow the link for the database which holds them, which in this case is the aircraft accident database. (If you fail to do this, or if you wait long enough for your database selection to "time out", the links will instead point to FAA Advisory Circulars, and you'll have to reselect the desired database.) When examining these pages, note that their HTML contents are generated by rather unreliable OCR; it's best to read the corresponding PDF, which is a scan of the original paper document. The documents include:


 * Press release, dated May 8, 1935, announcing a preliminary report by the Bureau of Air Commerce of the May 6 accident;


 * Final accident report by the Bureau of Air Commerce, dated June 5, 1935;


 * Memorandum, dated June 12, 1935, by the Director of Air Commerce (the Bureau's head) to the Secretary of Commerce, commenting on the accident report and the Bureau's view that TWA had violated several regulations;


 * Another memorandum, also dated June 12, 1935, by the Director of Air Commerce to the Secretary of Commerce, listing Department of Commerce efforts under way to solve some of the problems which contributed to the accident;


 * Public statement by the Secretary of Commerce, dated June 14, 1935, describing the accident investigation and its conclusions, the Department's belief that TWA had failed to follow regulations, and other views of the Department on necessary policies and actions.

Four of the five documents listed above (not including the May 8 press release) can also be found at Embry-Riddle's site and in the Air Commerce Bulletin issue mentioned above. Although these are the same documents as those at the DOT site, they are clearly independent printings, so you can cross-check for unreadable or obscured text, typographical errors, and any other possible differences.

The Embry-Riddle site has the documents combined into a single PDF file of paper document scans. Alas, it's even more difficult to link to individual pages on the Embry-Riddle site than on the DOT site. It is easiest to visit the following series of links in order: "Manufacturer", "DC-2", and then the May 6, 1935 accident page, which loads the PDF in a frame. (If you don't load these links in order, starting with "Manufacturer", they won't work. As with the DOT site, if your access "times out", you'll have to repeat this process.)

The location of the documents in the Air Commerce Bulletin is:


 * HathiTrust catalog entry (University of Michigan), scan (at first page of article)
 * HathiTrust catalog entry (University of California), scan (at first page of article)
 * HathiTrust catalog entry (University of California), scan (at first page of article)

Both the hearings of the Copeland Committee and its preliminary report were published and are available on HathiTrust. (A final report was promised, but apparently never written.) The hearings are a massive document, nearly 1,600 pages, divided into three separate parts combined as a single volume. (Oddly, the hearings are titled "Safety in Air", perhaps for symmetry with another unrelated set of hearings titled "Safety at Sea", while the preliminary report is titled "Safety in the Air".)


 * HathiTrust catalog entry (University of Michigan, University of California), University of Michigan scan (part 2) (part 3), University of California scan (part 2) (part 3)
 * HathiTrust catalog entry (University of Minnesota), University of Minnesota scan (part 2) (part 3)
 * HathiTrust catalog entry (University of Minnesota), University of Minnesota scan (part 2) (part 3)

The committee's report is only 32 pages, but be forewarned that this report was a very controversial document, as is discussed at length by Komons in Chapter VIII of his 1973 book, because of how it focused blame for the accident on the Bureau of Air Commerce while ignoring evidence supporting the Bureau.


 * HathiTrust catalog entry (University of Michigan), scan (at first page of report)
 * HathiTrust catalog entry (University of Michigan), scan (at first page of report)

--Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 17:33, 21 October 2017 (UTC)