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AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION   OK for distribution to ALPA members per cox and Baldwin C.S.
Telephone   International
National 2167   1185 National Press Building
Washington 4, D.C.
September 4, 1947
Corrected
Mr. B.R. Baldwin
c/o Mr. C. Stiles
28 Squirrel Hill Road
Rosyln Heights
Long Island, New York

Dear Lucky:
I have been wanting to write you for some time but never quite got the opportunity before going my vacation. I have just finished reading a letter from David L. Behncke to Senator Brewster regarding your unfortunate accident at La Guardia Field and felt it an opportune time to drop you a note. I have not had the opportunity of knowing you personally but perhaps you are acquainted with my activities as the pilots' representative on the President's Special Board of Inquiry on Air Safety in Washington; and one of my first jobs was the study of your case.
I felt there were several things, perhaps, that you have not even been informed of that you might wish to know about. I know how it is for a pilot in your position and how one feels when an unfortunate circumstance such as yours occurs. I have been through it myself, and I know that one of the uppermost things in a person's mind is what his brother pilots think about the situation. I can assure you, Lucky, that I have been able to find out that you were not, in any respect, responsible for the outcome. It is unfortunate that occasionally some of us have to be the guinea pigs and bear the brunt of some mistakes made by someone else, but it is well to feel that some good can come from such occurrences if properly followed through. I assure you, as a representative of the pilots' Association, that I have done this at our hearings here in Washington.
From the results of these hearings, we have accomplished one thing that may prevent some of the rest of us from being caught in similar circumstances. On the fifteenth of this month new regulations are going into effect causing the accountability for fifty percent of the temperature effect on "T" Category aircraft. In addition to this, we have found that on the runway at La Guardia, from which you took off, there was a ten foot incline which had an affect of approximately three thousand pounds additional weight on your airplane. The regulations are being changed so as to make any incline accountable for; regulations are being put into effect to give us accountability for wind changes by the use of wind socks on each integral runway with a further study as to the possibility of placing an anemometer instead of wind socks. This would have taken care of any wind shift conditions that you may have encountered.