AIR HORROR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 530, 13 May 1933, Page 7

AIR HORROR

RECENT DISASTERS CRASH OF IMPERIAL AIRWAY'S LINER CITY OF LIVERPOOL SURVIVORS' GRAPHIC STORIES "The little village of Dixmude, right in the centre of the battlefields durng the war, witnessed the worst disaster in the history of British commercial aviation," wrote a London Daily Telegraph correspondent describing the crash of the Imperial Airway's finer, City of Liverpool, in which 15 lives were. lost. Men and women who were working in the fields' when the crash occurred painted a graphic picture of the disaster. "I saw white smoke pouringf from the tail of the machine," said Achille, Millecum, of Dixmude, "and I knew that something terrible must be the matter. "The white smoke was followed by black. The machine passed almost over my head — so near that I could see the flames, which by then were bursting from it — and circled over a field a few yards away. Parcels letters, jewellery, and other articles fell to the ground in a shower. "Then came a woman. She was picked up dead, a few yards away. "I saw the machine dive straight inbo the ground, with the engine still running. There was a terific crash, and I ran to the spot with others who had been working near me. "We found the aeroplane blazing furiously, and at first could not get near it, the heat was so intense. "After a long time we were able to subdue the flames with buckets of water which we had collected from a neighbouring ditch." Passenger's Death Leap. Other witnesses declared that the air liner was flying at a height of about 2000 feet when it burst into flames, lurched, and began to fall. Then, while it was still at a great height, they saw a man, coatless and hatless — believed to be a Mr. Voss — jump from the machine. His body, terribly mutilated, was later found on the outskirts of Eesen, about a mile from the field in v/hich the plane crashed. By this time flames and smoke were bursting from the plane. The fire, spreading from one of the motors, where it is thought to have started, leapt rapidly through the fuselage. Just before the plane dived into the ground it fell to pieces, parts of the fuselage and rhe wings scattering in all directions. One wing nearly hit two little girls in the fields. Jewellery, baggage, coats, hats, and even some letters which the passengers had been writing, tumhled to the earth. The cahin, the only whole part of the plane, crashed to the ' ground with its passengers. All of them, I am told were burned almost beyond recognition. The pilot, Mr. Leleu, and his wireless operator were crashed • against one another. Imprisonen' Victims The sereams of the passengers as the plane tumbled headlong to earth were heard by the horrifie watchers. Here is v/hat M. Bonami, a Dixmude business man, said. "I was motoring along the side of the field when the liner crashed," he said. "All at once I heard a series of sharp cracks, and locking up saw the plane in a mass of flames. "Then I saw an old man clamber on the side and jump to the earth. I heard men and women screaming. It was terrible. "The pilot was apparently doing everything humanly possible to make a safe landing. But the fire had got such a firm grip that I knew it was hopeless. "Parts of the fuselage flew everywhere, and the bottom of the plane gave way entirely. A woman fell right through, followed by several pieccs of baggage and clothes. I turned away from the sight. It was utterly unbearable. A peasant from Eesen said: "I was working some distance away when I heard the plane crash. It must have been heard for miles. I ran to the scene. Several of the bodies were burned beyond recognition. Others Were dreadfully bruised." Col. Massart, whose property adjoins the scene of the accident, said that when the machine was just overhead there was a white flash of flame which envoloped the fuselage. "The entire machine became a ball of flaming fire," he declared. 'A woman either jumped or was flung from the cabin by-the force of an explosion, and crashed to the earth. Her shattered corpse, with the slcull smashed in, was found later, bearing terrible burns. "The pilot, who must have been suffering agonies from the flames was evidently bent on landing the machine. At a height of about 500 feet it turned twice, then dived, all afiame, into a cultivated field 200 yards from my house. "The air was filled with the terrible sereams of the passengers." The machine seems to have struck the earth at a slight angle, and the engines ar© completely buried in the soft earth. The wreckage of "the machine was strewn over a distance of 650 yards.