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office in the airport administration building, arriving about a minute and a half later. There was still a light rain falling at this time. None of the Braniff ground personnel remained on the ramp to control by signal the movements of the Braniff airplane prior to the take-off.[1] Nor did Captain Powers, after taxiing out to the point from which he intended to start his take-off, stop the airplane in such a position that he could have observed such signals had they been used. Witnesses stated that they could see clearly the boundary lights on the south side of the airport, approximately 3500 feet away. The Braniff passenger agent, who had carried the copy of the clearance form for Flight 2 back with him, left it in the radio room.
In the meantime, after Captain Boqua had obtained a release for TWA Flight 6 from the TWA flight superintendent at Kansas City, he had prepared a flight plan for the flight from Wichita to Kansas City. This flight plan, which indicated that he would cruise at 3,000 feet, was transmitted to the Airway Traffic Control Center at St. Louis, Missouri, at 2:15 a.m. and was approved by the Airway Traffic Control Center at that time. Captain Boqua understood from the information given by Airway Traffic Control that Braniff Flight 2 was to cruise at 5,000 feet and cross DeSota at 3,000. He was in the TWA radio room at the airport administration building at this time and observed through the window that Braniff Flight 2 was preparing to leave. A few seconds later he saw Braniff Flight 2 start down the taxi strip
- ↑ Paragraph 4 of Page 5252 of the Braniff Operations Manual provided as follows:
"After the plane is signalled away from the ramp, the movements of the plane shall be governed by the control tower. Where a control tower is not in use, the station employees will use red and white flags for signalling planes for take-off during daylight and red and green light signals for take-off during darkness."
