AN AIR TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 18 June 1929, Page 5

AN AIR TRAGEDY

LINER FALLS INTO CHANNEL

EIGHT PERSONS DROWNED

I United Press Association -By Electric 'telegraph—Copyright).

(Received this day at 10 a.m.) LONDON, June 17

The air liner, City of Ottawa, going to Paris from Croydon with eleven passengers, was forced down in the Channel, three miles from Dungencas. The latest reports state that eight are dead.

Earlier messages stated a trawler rescued the passengers and crew, but it appears a lot was taken for granted by watchers ashore by means of glasses. It was surmised the trawler pilot snip had rescued the lot. Instead it was found the forefront of the machine was submerged. It managed to rescue the mechanic and four passengers.

An hour elapsed before Mrs Fleming, of Sydney, was brought out dead. Tugs and trawlers are trying to tow the air liner inshore in the hope of saving those missing. The pilot was injured. Mrs Fleming’s daughter is dead, but Marjorie Smith, of Melbourne, was saved. Miss Smith’s father was also aboard.

FURTHER PARTICULARS. LONDON, June 17

The disaster to the air liner is the first in the history of Imperial Airways. Weighing three and a-lialf tons, the machine, which is virtually new, had just cleared the coast when the trouble occurred. A wireless message was sent that they were _ trying to land and then: “Cannot make it,” and later, “Going down.”

The liner fluttered impotently over a glassy sea. A pilot ship raced three miles and rescued five. Pilot Brailly, despite injury, directed vain efforts to get seven, who were imprisoned out, and it will not be possible to do this until they reach Folkestone to-night. ]< UR THER PARTICULARS. (United Press Assocmtion—By Electric Teleg. aph—Copyright). (Received this day at 11.25. a.m.) LONDON, June 17. Imperial Airways wonderful record was rudn!v shattered to-day, when the City of Ottawa (not Pretoria) nosedived in the Channel. She is a twinengined Hand Icy-Page and had thirteen aboard when she left Croydon at 10.3(1 for Zurich. She sent out an S.O.S. fifteen miles across the Channel. The pilot immediately turned back, but three miles from Folkestone wirolesseo “ Landing in sea- alongside a trawler which was first on the scene.” The plane sent up a huge column of water, somersaulting and smashing its wings and immediately beginning to sink, but the trawler got' grappling irons under the ’plane and’'cleverly kept part of the machine above the waterline, tvhile the crew .used axes against the outside walls, of the cabin and thus reached the imprisoned passengers. These were thrown in aheap when the ’plane dived. Some ■ were already beyond human aid owing’ to injuries or being drowned by the inrush of water, but four passengers and a mechanic were taken off.

Efforts to rescue continued for an hour before the body of a woman was extricated from the cabin. An attempt was then made to tow the ’plane and bodies ashore. When a pilot cutter came in sight of shore it signalled for an ambulance and the injured, including two women, were placed in a rowing boat and taken to the hospital. The body of Mrs Iclierson, a relative of Flemings, both of whom were rescued, was also taken ashore, covered with a Union Jack. Four bodies are still in the City of Ottawa. The stationmaster advised at 2 p.m. that the train from Hokitika to Greymouth would run this afternoon at the usual hour, the line damage having been repaired.