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Captain Holsinger said that he has encountered conditions when the de-icer did not effectively clear his windshield and when the sliding portion of the front windshield was frozen tight, in which cases it was his practice to open the side window and scrape off the ice with a putty knife.
Captain Edward Couples, piloting Trip 106 of Pennsylvania Central Airlines, took off from Chicago at 3:30 on a scheduled trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan. After flying half way across Lake Michigan, he encountered an icing condition which he believed would have made it dangerous to continue and he returned to Chicago. At 4:32 he checked in over the Chicago range station at 6000 feet, flying between layers, and cruised close to the range station awaiting a clearance to land. During this period he was cruising in and out of the overcast and only picking up light ice while in the overcast, which was effectively taken care of by the de-icer boots. At 5:08 he was cleared to 4000 feet and reported to Airway Traffic Control at 5:15 that he was unable to maintain his position at that altitude on account of the extremely heavy icing condition he was encountering. He was then cleared back to 5000 feet but did not climb to that altitude because he expected an approach clearance within a few minutes. Captain Couples testified that he reported he would be able to hold at 4000 feet for only about 5 minutes on account of the icing condition. At 5:20 he was cleared to 3000 feet, at which time he reported it would be necessary to obtain his approach clearance "pretty quick" due to the heavy ice. He was cleared to the tower at 5:25, made contact at 5:27, and landed at 5:32. The tower reported the wind as north northwest, 10 miles per hour, and gave him the option of landing on either the northwest or the west runway. Captain Couples advised the tower that he was choosing
