AIR CRASH INQUIRY

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28264, 30 April 1957, Page 9

AIR CRASH INQUIRY

Magsaysay’s Death

(N.Z. Press Association Copyright) SINGAPORE, April 28. Philippine Army authorities yesterday said that a mechanical failure because of “metal fatigue” caused the plane crash which killed President Ramon Magsaysay and 25 others in Cebu Island in the Southern Philippines on March 17. | Testifying before a Senate Investigating Committee, General Manue Cabal, chief of the Philippines Constabulary, said that a joint investigation by five Government agencies found evidence that metal fatigue in the right engine of the Presidential plane caused the engine to falter as the plane was climbing to clear Cebu’s high mountain, Mount Manungal. General Cabal headed the joint investigations committee. The senate committee began its inquiry into the cause of the crash this morning. l| General Cabal’s testimony discounted the sabotage theory which Senator Manuel Cuenco, chairman of the Senate committee, had advanced earlier. > Mr Cuenco told reporters on Thursday that Constabulary officials had informed him that water was found in the carburettor of the converted twin-engine C-47. Colonel Teodulo Natividad, chief of the Constabulary’s crime laboratory, said a certain water content in a gasoline tank was “normal.” But he said: “I could not have told the chairman about the gasoline in the carburettor because my laboratory was not assigned to examine the carburettor.” i The committee will continue its inquiry on Monday.