CAUSE OF DISASTER

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1931, Page 8

CAUSE OF DISASTER

STRUCK WATER TOO STEEPLY

LONDON, 4th February. In reference to the disaster to the R.A.F. Blackburn Isis flying boat, which crashed and sunk in, Plymouth Sound, with a loss of nine lives, aeronautical experts emphasise the wellknown danger of misjudging distance from smooth water. ■ Such a misjudgmen^t accounted for the death of the Schneider Cup flyer, Flight-Lieutenant Kinkead, in 1929. Diving from a speed attempt, he failed to flatten out. 1 A comparatively small change of angle in the descent would have turned to-day's disaster into merely a bad landing. The flying-boat came down to the water-level at a speed exceeding the usual landing speed of 52 miles an hour. Normally, it would have settled clown on tho surface as it lost flying speed., Instead, it drove into the water at 60 miles an hour, and at an angle of twenty degrees, behind which was/the weight of thirteen tons. The force of the collision may well be imagined. One occupant was rendered unconscious by the impact, and carried down. Another, in the second pilot's seat,' escaped. Ryley, in the forward gun cockpit, and Barry, in the after cockpit, rose to the surface. The remaindor were not warned of the danger and found exit impossible. Divers discovered Rutledge's body. The flying-boat was broken in halves. As the salvaged forepart was brought up, it was fou,nd that no bodies were in it. The remaindor lies in deep water. The wings dropped off following attempts ■to raise the hull. The worst previous accident was at Bagdad in 1926, when seven were killed in a troop-carrier crash.