Word: beams
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...Salt Lake City range is notoriously skittish. A heavy snowfall often knocks its radio beams out of kilter. In its 120-page crash report, CAB told what it had done to make instrument approaches to Salt Lake City safe. Three radio operators in outlying stations were ordered to listen to the range once an hour, be sure it was working as it should. The operator at Salt Lake City had the same duty. And just to make doubly sure, a recorder was installed near the Salt Lake City airport, recorded the functioning of the beam on a paper tape...
...drizzling on the ground and the neon lights on the hangar roofs were haloed in mist when Flight 6 rumbled overhead toward the radio range. The sound of her engines died in the clouds. East of the field Pilot Scott made his turn, headed west, letting down along the beam. From the tower the operators saw Flight 6 break out over the red neon-light "ladder" marking the end of Run way No. 1 (east-west). Pilot Scott was a little high, perhaps by miscalculation, perhaps by design. Flight 6, down to around 300 feet, zipped west over the runway...
...bright, clear air just above an alabaster overcast, boomed United Air Lines Trip 21, bound for Chicago with 13 passengers, a crew of three. Over Lansing, Ill. (18 miles southeast of Chicago), handsome Captain Phil Scott, onetime University of Minnesota hockey captain, heard the hum of the Chicago beam in his earphones. By that time it was dark. Passengers and crew had seen the unforgettable sight of the setting sun turning the gleaming white cloud layer to a glory of gold. Now the stars were out, the cloud layer black...
...done scores of times before. Few minutes later Howard Fey made his last call. He was over the Layton marker, 18 miles north of the field. The operator knew his next move would be a turn to the left, into the "A" Zone, a swing back on the beam, an easy letdown from the north into the field. But nothing happened...
...Salt Lake City flew Civil Aeronautics Board men to investigate the second crash on U. S. airlines in 65 days-after a 17-month period in which not a single life was lost. But Pilot Fey's flying friends thought they already knew the answer. The beam must have failed just as he turned off into the "A" zone to head south. Angling back on to the steady hum of the beam before heading south to the airport, he should have heard the cheeping dot-dash of the "A" until he picked up the steady hum of the course...