Missing Belgian Airliner

Chronicle (Levin), 20 September 1946, Page 5

Missing Belgian Airliner

Press Assn.-

some survivors, sighted

By Telegraph

■Comjright

Received Friday, 11 a.m. NEW yorlv, Sept. 19; The wreckage of a Belgian airliner, which was twelve hours overdue in Newfoundland from Europe with 37 passengers and a crew of seven, was sighted by a searcli plane in the hilly lake country 22 miles south-west of the airport atfGander, Newfoundland. The air-r craft is a DC4 belonging to the Belgian Sabena Company. It is reported that five survivors, two men, two women and one ;child, were sighted near the crashed plane. The Sabena Company has confirmed that there were some survivors, but the exact number is not yet known. The plane left Shannon, Eire, ;late on Tuesday night, and it is ;known she was over Gander, Newfoundland, early yesterday morning. Airport officials stated that the pilot of the airliner was heard reporting by radio at 4.37 a.m. that he was approaching a field at 2000 feet and expected to land within four minutes. Captam Merrill, the pilot of an American airliner en route from Paris to New York, said his takeoff from Gander was delayed 40 minutes because the Belgian was making radio contact with the Gander tower. A K.L.M. aircraft, which arrived at New York from Amsterdam, bypassed Gander because of- rough weather.