TRAGIC AIR SMASH

Chronicle (Levin), 4 October 1946, Page 5

TRAGIC AIR SMASH

Press Assn.

Airliner Strikes Hillside

3 THIRTYNINE BELIEVED DEAD

By Telegraph

-Copyright

Received Friday, 16.55 a.m. NEW YOKXV, occ. 3. . An Overseas Airways airliner, B.C.4 Skymaster, wicn thirty-one passengers and a crew of eight crashect i'nto a hillside lUO feet iioni *the summit, ten miles from Harmon, which is 200 miles west of Gander, Newfoundland. The crash occurred at 4.35 a.m. sOon "after taking off from the air^held. The plane apparently ex(«t|loded after the crash, because Y.\>nly a small piece of wreckage was visible from the air. The coastguard has dispatched a rescue plane, helicopter and paratroopers to the scene of the disaster, although the possibility of survivors is considered rernote. The crashed plane was en route from New York to Berlin. The thirty-one . passengers included three children aged four years, twenty months and six months. The flrst two belonged to oue family. They were travelling with their mother to Amsterdam. The remainder of the passengers were bound for Frankfurt and Berlin. Most of the women passengers were going to join their servicemen husbands. The plane would normally have landed at Gander to refuel, but that airport was closed by rain and fog. Observers from the air reported that t.he wreckage burned for four hours.