The 1935 crash that killed Senator Bronson Cutting caused the FDR administration to begin the process that authorized the Civil Aeronautics Act, leading to accident investigation by an independent party.

Prior to this, pilots who were no longer alive to defend themselves almost unilaterally received the blame for any crash, as neither airplane manufacturers nor the government wanted to accept blame.

Read this in Flying the Line on a recommendation from this forum last year. Good history.

At least in that case, something positive came from an accident. Hopefully we can learn something from this one as well.

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