Page:CAB Aircraft Accident Report, Pan Am Flight 214.pdf/20

 ATTACHMENT III



Mr. Leon H. Tanguay

Director, Bureau of Safety

Civil Aeronautics Board

Washington, D. C. 20428

Dear Mr. Tanguay:

This will supplement our January 2, 1964, acknowledgment to your Letter,reference B-80-95, dated December 11, 1963, regarding the Pan American World Airways, Inc, Beoing 707-121, N709PA, aircraft accident near Elkton, Maryland, on December 8, 1963.

The recommendations and suggestions offered in your letter of December 17,1963, have been carefully considered along with other ideas for achieving improved protection against lightning stakes. The Agency is engaged in a program of studies, tests, and investigations to provide information essential to the development and application of superior protective measures.

Although the investigation of the accident has not yet disclosed evidence of the mechanism by which a lightning strike ignited the fuel, we have applied certain precautionary measures, each of which offers some degree of benefit. These are: