Page:CAB Accident Report, American Airlines Flight 20.pdf/24

 aids to rely on after passing the boundary of the airport except two green lights over a mile distant at the opposite side of the airport.

When the aircraft ballooned into the air, Captain Bryant had to make a split-second choice between the alternatives, i.e., of continuing to a landing or of applying additional power and circling the field for another landing approach. By his own statement Captain Bryant, when at the top of his rise, could safely have applied power and circled the field again, but instead he elected to land because he saw ahead of him in the windshield a "green glow" which he took to be the range lights at the southern end of runway 6. It was testimony that he first saw this green glow when at the height of his rise and that at that time he was unable to see any of the red obstruction lights upon the levee.

To continue the landing as Captain Bryant did under the uncertain wind conditions and almost zero visibility forward from the cockpit which prevailed at the time, was not an exercise of the highest degree of caution reasonably to be expected of airline pilots. Under the circumstances, prudence would have required that, unless he were certain that he was correctly lined up with the runway after having been caught in the violent gust of wind, he should follow the safer course and continue flying, while power was still being applied to the engines. It was poor judgment to attempt to land upon such a poorly lighted airport in reliance solely upon a "green glow", when all other landmarks were obscured from his point of view. Wind and rain conditions were a warning that the storm front of which he was apprised before departure had reached Cincinnati and should have prompted him to exercise the utmost diligence. A second circle of the field would have given him an opportunity to determine more correctly the prevailing weather conditions, and would have permitted him either to