Air Safety Conference. Washington, D.C. More than 200 representatives of the nation's airlines and technical experts from the U.S. Bureau of Air Commerce met at conference today to study recent air crashes with a view to preventing such accidents in the future. Gene Vidal, Director of the Bureau of Air, presided at the meeting which was held at the Department of Commerce. In the photograph, left to right: (seated) O.A. Patterson, President of United Airlines; E.E. Jett, Chief Engineer of Federal Communications; Sidney Shannon, Operations Manager Eastern Airlines; Eugene Vidal, Director of Bureau of Air Commerce; and Harland Hull, Chief Pilot of TWA