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officer's testimony, the turn had progressed to approximately 230 degrees when the airplane was thrown into a vertically banked condition to the left and the air speed dropped off very rapidly. The first officer testified that as the air speed dropped the airplane seemed to fall or side-slip and the nose of the airplane went down. Crabtree stated that as the nose dropped, the air speed seemed to pick up and the airplane started a left spin. He further testified that the instruments indicated that the airplane was in a left spin (bank and turn indicator needle pointed to the left while the ball was to the extreme right; the directional gyro was turning rapidly; the horizon showed the airplane nose down and wing down). The first officer stated that he again assisted the captain on the controls and that during the spin the right rudder was used constantly and the control column was pushed forward as far as it would go. After reaching an altitude of 1000 feet, according to the first officer's testimony, both he and O'Brien pulled back on the wheel and immediately following this shift of controls the pressure increased on the controls to such an extent that the rudder could hardly be held. The first officer testified that "immediately following this my next impression was of the instruments being centered and the airplane not turning in a spin and the wings or lateral attitude of the airplane being normal, level." The altimeter showed between 300 and 400 feet, the rate of climb showing neither ascent nor descent, and the air-speed indicator showing 60 to 70 m.p.h.[1] The first officer stated that they were "mushing" forward, that the pressure on the controls became very "light", and that he started to apply power slowly in order to prevent the torque of the engines from throwing the airplane into another spin. He estimated that approximately one-half take-off power was being applied at the time they crashed. Crabtree stated that the visibility at the time they broke out of the overcast was reduced due to heavy rain and that he did not see the trees previously described by Captain O'Brien.
Crabtree, in describing the storm, stated that he did not see the cloud mass until they encountered it. He attributed his inability to see the clouds to the condition which he described as solid purplish haze in which they were flying prior to entering the storm. The first officer testified that while in the storm they encountered heavy rain, sleet, and possibly hail, and extreme turbulence.
The evidence indicates that the airplane struck the ground shortly after Crabtree's last reading of the altimeter and air-speed meter. It struck with power on in a swamp in shallow water at a point 10-½ miles west-southwest of the Vero Beach Airport,[2] at approximately 9:07 A.M.[3]
Shortly after 10:00 A.M. the operations manager of Eastern, stationed at Miami, was advised by operations personnel at Miami that Trip 14 was 20 minutes overdue at Daytona Beach and had not reported since 8:45 A.M. All company radio messages were checked and Eastern's Miami radio station broadcast intermittently in an effort to contact Trip 14. About 1:00
- ↑ The stalling speed of the DC-3 with flaps up, throttle closed and a weight of 21,800 pounds, which appears to have been the approximate weight in this case, is approximately 74 m.p.h. It is an established fact that when an airplane is at or near the stalling speed the air-speed indicator often shows a reading lower than the speed at which the airplane is actually traveling. This may explain the extremely low air-speed indicator reading recalled by the copilot.
- ↑ See map on opposite page showing approximate location of the scene of the accident and the location of the cities and other points to which reference is made in this report.
- ↑ This time was fixed by the stopping of the first officer's watch.
