11 JANUARY 1957, Page 17

AIR PILOTS AND ACCIDENTS SIR.—The article in your issue of

January 4 by Mr. Oliver Stewart seems to us to beg a considerable number of questions but the Institution welcomes the last paragraph of the article in which it requests frankness about the facts in accidents.

It is the Institution's view that, wrongly and un- reasonably, the Secretary of State for Air has sought to place a measure of responsibility upon the Air Traffic Control officer engaged in the talk-down. The inquiries held by the Secretary of. State for Air aro

secret inquiries. There is, so far as we are aware, nothing that requires the report to be maintained as a secret document and the Institution would welcome the publication of the full report. It is welcome news that the report of the investigation made by Dr. Touch is to be published, but it seems to be taking an unreasonably long time in getting published, having regard to the importance of the report and the importance of the issues that are involved in the report.

It is to be hoped that all the facts of this case will be made available, not primarily to deal with the business of the apportionment of blame, which, after all, gets no one anywhere, but in order to ensure that, if there have been organisational or material errors, these can be corrected—Yours faith- fully, The Institution of Professional Civil Servants