Page:CAB Aircraft Accident Report, Panagra Flight 9.pdf/8



Weather reports obtained from Pangara, plus the study of the Southern Hemisphere maps prepared by the United States army Weather Central on January 22, revealed that a cold front had moved into the extreme southern portion of Peru and accounted for the rain that had already occurred in the Arequipa area. It is believed that the front, was near or slightly to the north of the location of the accident the time it occurred. This would account for cloudiness, low ceilings end rain in that area. The fact that the wind shifted from south-southeast to south-southwest, subsequent to take-off of trip No. 9 from Arequipa, could account for the plane having drifted several miles to the right of its course and this condition evidently had not been included in the pilot's reckoning. Velocity of the south-south-west wind was estimated from available information to have been approximately 20 m.p.h.

William Henry Howell, a British subject who held dispatcher certificate No. 10912-40, was the Flight Watch Control dispatcher at Lima but was not on duty at the time of the accident. In this position, he was, charged with exercising controls over all flights from Santiago, Chile, until arrival in Lima, Peru. His assistant, T. P. Unsworth, uncertificated as a dispatcher, was, on dirty the afternoon of the subject flight. Unsworth was authorized by Panagra to act as dispatcher in Howell's absence. According; to Panagra, this was in keeping with the dispatch requirements, as laid down in their operations specifications, as Howell was available for consultation when Unsworth was on duty. According to the Air Carrier Branch of the CAA this practice does not agree with their interpretation and the CAA has since taken corrective action.

This portion of the line Arequipa to Lima, is practically cloudless for ten months of the year and is flown contact. Several pilots, who have flown