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Condition of the Wreckage
Prior to the arrival of personnel of the Board and personnel connected with the Civil Aeronautics Administration, the wreckage had been salvaged by United States Navy and Pan American personnel. It had been taken to the nearby Naval Air Station where it was readily accessible for examination.
Inspection disclosed that the hull had broken into two pieces just forward of the step. The forward section of the hull exhibited considerable damage, especially on its left side, from bending and compression loads, such as would be caused by severe impact with the water. It appeared that the bulk of the impact had been taken by the left portion of the bow. A severe dent, apparently from compression loads, was found on the left top side of the bow about eight feet back. The right side of the front section of the bow and the front portion of the keel remained generally intact. The left flap was broken off along a line of cleavage more or less coinciding with the hinge line, indicating that it had been down at the tune of the accident. The left wing tip pontoon was torn completely from the left wing, and was damaged in such a way as to indicate clearly that the impact loads were from the nose and the left side of the pontoon. The left wing was broken completely away from the hull. It was damaged in a manner suggesting that the direction of the water loads had been against the leading edge which was crushed backwards for a distance of about 70 percent of the span. The right wing also was torn from the hull but was damaged much less than the left wing. There appeared to have been much less water load on its leading edge. The right wing tip pontoon remained attached to the wing and was not damaged severely. Most of the empennage units were broken from their respective fastenings but this breakage appeared to have been incurred during the salvaging operations.
The control system in general was badly damaged as was to be expected because of the heavy loads imposed during impact and subsequent salvage. It was, therefore, impossible to determine positively that the control system was intact prior to impact. However, the evidence indicated that the entire control system had remained fully operative until the time of the accident.
All four engines were subsequently torn down and inspected but no indication of power plant failure or interruption was disclosed. The condition of the blades of the four propellers, although some of them were bent during salvaging, indicated that little or no power was being applied at the two they were submerged.
All four ignition switches were on. The switch which operates the sign indicating that passengers should fasten their seat belts was on. The landing light switches ware on. The flap control handle was in the "down" position and the flap indicator showed "full down". All mixture controls were in the full rich position. The propeller pitch settings were found to be in various positions. Numbers 1 and 4, the outboard left and right controls, respectively, were in "take—off" position, while Numbers 2 and 3, the inboard left and inboard right controls, respectively, were found to be about half-way between "take—off" and "cruise" positions. The throttle positions were found as follows. Number 1 half—way between the open and closed position, Number 2 in the fully closed position, Number 3 in the one-quarter open position, and Number 4 in the fully open position. The positions of the throttle and propeller pitch controls, as ascertained subsequent to the accident, are not definitely indicative of their positions prior to the accident, their fore and aft travel making it possible for the strong accelerations in the aircraft during the crash to have changed them.
In addition to the parts of the aircraft the conditions of which have been ascribed above, all remaining component parts and all the instruments installed in the aircraft were
