Page:CAB Accident Report, Pennsylvania-Central Airlines Flight 143.pdf/7

- 6 - over the PCA route from Pittsburgh to Birmingham with three crew members and ten passengers. Its maximum gross weight was specified as 14,000 pounds without de-icer equipment. At the time of the departure of Trip 143 from Charleston the gross weight of the airplane was 12,913 pounds.

The maintenance competency letter issued by the Civil Aeronautics Administration to PCA requires, with respect to Boeing Model 247D airplanes, that the engines be overhauled every 700 hours and that the airplane, including engines, be given a periodic inspection every 120 hours, a routine inspection every 20 hours, and a daily inspection. The right engine of airplane NC 13359, which had been operated a total of 3,076 hours 23 minutes, had been in service 668 hours 55 minutes since its last overhaul. The left engine, which had been operated a total of 6881 hours 19 minutes, had been in service 671 hours 58 minutes since its last overhaul. The airplane and its engines had been operated 29 hours and 33 minutes since the last periodic inspection. A daily inspection had been made at Pittsburgh on April 15, 1941. The condition of the airplane and the maintenance records produced by PCA indicated that the airplane was in an airworthy condition when it was dispatched from Charleston, West Virginia, on April 15, 1941, for the flight to Pittsburgh.