User:Mukkakukaku/sandbox


 * Current project: TWA Flight 6 (1935)
 * Other project 1: ../sandbox8
 * Other project 2: ../sandbox9

= Article =

TWA Flight 6 was a scheduled commercial flight from Los Angeles, California, to Newark, New Jersey, which crashed near Atlanta, Missouri, on May 6, 1935. Five of the 13 people on board were killed, including U.S. Senator Bronson M. Cutting of New Mexico. The crash and subsequent investigation generated significant public interest due to the high profile nature of one of the victims, as well as the recent restructuring of air line regulations under the Bureau of Air Commerce.

Flight
Transcontinental & Western Air Flight 6 was a scheduled commercial flight from Los Angeles, California to Newark, New Jersey on May 5, 1935. The aircraft was a Douglas DC-2 named "Sky Chief", with registry number NC-13785. It departed Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, California at 4:00 p.m., local time, carrying passengers and mail.


 * likely injured: Richard Wallace (director) ? --> ref. p2 of accident report, "Richard Wallace, Hollywood".
 * unlikely injured: Henry Granville Sharpe --> ref. p2 of accident report, "Henry Sharpe, Los Angeles" --> not likely...
 * possibly injured: Paul Wing --> ref. p2 of accident report, "Paul Wing, Beverly Hills"

Investigation
<!-- TWA Flight 6 was a Transcontinental & Western Air Douglas DC-2, on a route from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, that crashed near Atlanta, Missouri, on May 6, 1935, killing five of the thirteen people on board, including Senator Bronson M. Cutting of New Mexico. The airliner crashed when its wingtip hit the ground as it flew under a low cloud ceiling at very low level, over dark, fog-shrouded country, while its pilots were trying desperately to reach a nearby emergency landing field before their fuel ran out.

Investigators from the Bureau of Air Commerce concluded that several factors had led up to this crisis, including communications malfunctions, darkness, inaccurate weather forecasts, worsening weather at the destination airport, and errors in judgment both from the airline dispatchers and the flight crew; they also found TWA in violation of several aviation regulations. Senator Cutting's death drove Congress to look into the Bureau's own management of civil aviation. Senator Royal S. Copeland established a special subcommittee, the Copeland Committee, which held hearings that harshly criticized the Bureau and released a controversial preliminary report that blamed the Bureau's management for the accident. This political battle played a major role in the Bureau of Air Commerce being replaced in 1938 by the newly formed Civil Aeronautics Authority.