Page:CAB Aircraft Accident Report, American Airlines Flight 28.pdf/9



Mrs. Margaret Caldwell, housewife, Raymond W. Martin, telephone company guard, who also served as a volunteer airplane spotter at his guard station near Palm Springs, and Private Roy West, cook, United States Army, were the only persons known to have witnessed the accident from the ground.

Private West was unknown to the Civil Aeronautics Board at the time of the hearing on the present accident and, therefore, was not called as a witness in that hearing. The Board first learned of this witness at the time he appeared before the Army Court Martial of Lieutenant Wilson, which was subsequent to the Board's hearing and his deposition was thereupon obtained. Private West, in this deposition, testified that while batting a tennis bell against a backstop at the U.S.C. tennis courts in the northern section of Palm Springs he observed two airplanes flying in such close proximity to each other that they attracted and held his attention. He stated that the airliner was about 50 feet to the north and about seven "Bomber lengths" to the rear of the Army plane. He identified the two planes by the silver color of the Airliner and the Army green of the Bomber. He stated that "they were coming through this Pass and the Bomber in a right bank and the airliner moved in under it. The airliner nosed down an the tail came up and hit the right motor of the Bomber and the tail was cut off. ..."

Private West was under the impression that when an airplane is nosed down the tail rises by a considerable amount. This is incorrect. The precise course followed by the tail during such a maneuver would