Page:CAB Accident Report, United Airlines Flight 21.pdf/24

 Mrs. Josephine Davis was a resident of the top floor of an apartment house on the northeast corner of 64th Street and Keating Avenue. This house is approximately 880 feet from the boundary of the airport and about 200 feet east of the point to impact, and is a few feet south of the projected line of the northwest runway. Planes landing on the northwest runway ordinarily pass slightly to the east and north of the apartment house, with the left wing tip practically over the northeast corner of it. Mrs. Davis, the wife of an aviation mechanic working for the American Airlines at the Chicago Municipal Airport, has occupied the same apartment for three years and has often watched airplanes coming in for a landing on the northwest runway. As United 21 approached, she was seated in her living room. This room, approximately 35 feet from the ground, has seven windows, two of which face directly south and a bay with three windows facing directly west, one southwest and one northwest. The witness stated that she was looking southeast through one of the south windows when she was attracted by the bright glare of the landing lights of an aircraft. This glare particularly attracted her attention because it struck the window furthest to the east at a position near the bottom of the window lower than the lights usually struck when planes were landing on the northwest runway. The witness, thinking that the aircraft was very low, arose from her chair to look out of the northwest window to see the airplane land. In this connection she stated that she and her husband very often watched the airplanes land on the northwest runway "because they do sometimes have to land awfully short."