Page:CAB Accident Report, TWA Flight 6.pdf/18

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immediately following this left turn is best related by First Officer DioGuardi who was sitting on the right side of the pilot's cockpit. He said: "While in this bank we apparently brushed what I know now was trees. Captain Scott immediately before or just about the time we hit these trees, applied full power immediately. The airplane was then out of control and Captain Scott tried to bank the airplane back to level flight but it was impossible . . . . As a matter of fact I myself helped him on the controls in an effort, to return . . . to level flight because the airplane was really out of control and the wheel was all the way to the right but was very hard to keep there."

Russell L. Biermann, one of the control tower operators on duty at the airport at the time of the accident, testified at the hearing that he was watching the lights on the airplane when it passed beyond the west boundary of the airport. He said, "About a quarter of mile after he passed over the west edge of the field, he began to circle to the left to make an approach in on runway No. 6; of course, when I speak of the airplane, I am speaking of seeing his lights . . . shortly after the turn was begun I noticed the white light began to descend slightly to the left and the red navigation light became slightly visible. Then at almost the same instant the pilot applied what seemed to be full power with his engine . . . the noise was increased three or four times to what it was when he went over the field, and the white light and the red light descended quite a bit and then the red light went out and the