Page:Aviation Accident Report, United Air Lines Flight 4.pdf/9

- 8 - obscured by clouds. These witnesses, as well as the observer on duty at the Weather Bureau Station, testified also that the ensuing fire of the wreckage was clearly beneath the overcast. Estimates of the witnesses as to the visibility varied between 4 and 8 miles.

United's Trip 17, which landed at 10:53 p.m. became contact just north of the range station at an altitude of about 5,000 feet above sea level. The crew members estimated that the visibility as observed from the cockpit was between 5 and 8 miles. In the vicinity of the Layton marker, at an altitude of about 7000 feet above sea level, they observed light snow, but by the time the trip had descended to about 6500 feet the precipitation was a moderate rain. They stated that there was no wind drift noticeable and they observed no ice during the approach from Ogden to Salt Lake.

One witness who climbed the to the scene of the accident testified that the rain changed to light snow about 35 or 40 minutes after the crash occurred.

Examination of the Wreckage

The airplane first struck a knoll or shoulder on the hillside which sloped downward toward the west at an angle of approximately 30-degrees from the horizontal. The marks on the hillside indicated that the left propeller contacted the ground first, followed by the left lending gear wheel which plowed into the ground. A few feet farther on, the right propeller blades struck the ground, followed by the right wheel which also plowed into the ground but not as deeply as the left wheel. The airplane apparently ricocheted across a gully and crashed into a steep bank on the far side. At this point the airplane apparently began to disintegrate,