M U E L L E R , M A R F A , A N D T H E G AT H E R I N G S T O R MMueller capacity. By 1973, annual enplanements reached 328,717, a threeyear 22-percent gain over 1970. During that same period airline freight traf registered a 46 percent gain, with Austin industries dispatching 838.31 tons of high priority material.64 And with a daily average of some thirty scheduled departures, airport crowding was destined to increase. On June 7, 1974, Texas International Airlines inaugurated Austin st daily, one-carrier round-trip service to Mexico City, and the following September Braniff announced plans for direct one-plane service to Chicago, Denver, and New York. The Austin City Council took note of the Mueller situation, and on December 27 the mayor appointed a ten-member Citizens�Aviation Advisory Committee, supported by a seven-member technical committee, to assess the city future aviation needs.65 To further complicate the issue, an article appearing in the April 1975 issue of Texas Monthly cited Mueller as one of the most dangerous airports in Texas. Of the ten airports evaluated, Austin ranked th in the igh risk�category. Based on an interview with Braniff International Airways captain William Alford, chairman of the Airline Pilots Association Airport Evaluation Committee, the article concluded: ustin possesses one of the state real air travel problems, a cramped, dangerous airport that has no business being where it is.�Being completely surrounded by business and residential development and having takeoff and landing approaches to runways too short to accommodate modern jet airliners earned the airport its igh risk�rating. Given the shorter north-south runway, plane landing short or faltering on takeoff could come down squarely in the middle of the Capital Plaza shopping center.�66 The article, appearing at that critical time of policy assessment, addressed three issues that would dominate the airport debate for months to come: neighborhood safety, enlargement or relocation of the airport, and joint use of Bergstrom Air Force Base for military and commercial airline operations. There was justiation for neighborhood concern. On April 22, 1970, eight people died when a Beechcraft win Bonanza�piloted by Austin neurosurgeon Robert G. Farris crashed into the residence of Freddie Anthony Bobbitt at 916 East Forty-eighth Street while attempting to land. Farris, his wife, two daughters, his ofe partner Dr. Ben Edward Becker Jr., and medical student Jimmy Doyle Dickens were all occupants of the aircraft. Bobbitt died instantly when the plane plunged into his bedroom; his wife, Peggy, died the following day at Brackenridge Hospital. The Bobbitts�four-month-old baby survived.157
