How Aeroplane Disasters Teach:
The Need of a New Science June §.—Five army officers and two civilians lost their lives, May 29, in the crash of an ambulance airplane flying from Langley Field to Washington. The accident came after a day spent in watching the experiments being carried out in the bombing of warships in motion, experiments which called for the concentration of an unusual number of planes at Langley Field. After the conclusion of the day's observations, several of these planes started back for Washington,-among them one driven by Brigadier-General William Mitchell, Assistant Chief of the Army Air Service. General Mitchell, in a scout plane, succeeded in partly avoiding and in breaking through the barrier of sudden storms which brought disaster to the plane which carried its seven occupants to their death. The air conditions at the time of the accident are described by General Mitchell as follows:
"I saw heavy storms spread out toward the north, with much lightning. I turned up the Wicomico River, a Maryland stream running into the lower Potomac, to investigate conditions, and then caught a glimpse of one of the worst electrical storms I have} the witnessed in some years of flying. I thought to myself then: Lord help the men that get into that storm!" However, I went up toward the edge of the storm to study conditions better.
"Based on experience, I knew that if we got into that storm there would be a sure crash... We were travelling over 120 miles an hour, and unable to go around the edge of the storm, which was moving too fast...
"Looking toward the northwest, I could see a clear space between two storms in the direction of Fredericksburg. I cut back over Virginia into the country "f the Rappahannock River. We followed up that river until we struck the edge of a storm, and were then driven into a course that was on a line between Fredericksburg and Richmond until we saw an opening through the two storms. After travelling about 50 miles we managed to get through and then swung: around so as to come out on the Potomac River again, about half-way between jAquita Creek and Potomac Creek, about 50 miles south of Washington.
"By that time the atmosphere cleared up and we came into Washington without further incident, landing at Bolling Field about 7:20 o'clock.
Captain Rickenbacker, the well-known American war pilot, was also caught in the same storm and had one of the narrowest escapes from death of his adventurous career. The story of the army affeers and civilians who went to their death will never be told, for there was not a single survivor of the crash.
The incident brings out the need for the development of an exten-
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