SEARCHING INQUIRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 657, 8 May 1929, Page 9

SEARCHING INQUIRY

FORCED LANDING OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS PROVISIONS AND EQUIPMENT (United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright SYDNEY, Tuesday. The committee of inquiry set up in investigate the forced landings of the Southern Cross and Kookaburra will commence its sittings next Tuesday. The tribunal has been constituted under the Air Navigation Act of 1920. It will be empowered to summon witnesses. to take evidence on oath, and to move from place to place. A lead ing barrister, probably a K.C., will be briefed to assist the committee. The regulations will probably contain provisions to enable the interested parties to be represented by counsel before the committee. The Federal Government will pay the cost of the inquiry, and an officer of the Prime Minister’s Department is to be appointed secretary. The members of the committee arc: Brigadier-General Lachlan Chisholm Wilson, solicitor, of Brisbane; Captain Geoffrey Hughes, president of the New South Wales Aero Club: Mr. C. N. McKay, president of the Victorian Aero Club. TERMS OF REFERENCE The terms of reference, designed to cover the whole of the circumstances, are as follow: 1. The flight of the Southern Cross from Sydney on March 31, 1929. and more particularly the adequacy of the provision made for such flight in the equipment, accessories, and food, and other supplies of the airplane, having regard to the possible contingencies of the flight; and, further, the forced landing of the airplane, and the circumstances and contributory causes x>f such landing. 2. The reasons why the position of the Southern Cross after its forced landing was not ascertained until April 12, 1929. 3. The deaths of Lieutenant Anderson and Mr. R. S. Hitchcock, and the forced landing of the Kookaburra, including, but having due regard to any circumstances of urgency, the matters mentioned in paragraph 1, with regard to the Southern Cross. 4. The loss of the airplane D.H. 9A. including, but having due regard to any circumstances of urgency, the matters mentioned in paragraph 1 with regard to the Southern Cross. 5. The desirability of requiring further precautions to be adopted in relation to long-distance airplane flights, in the interests of pilots, passengers and crew, and of the community generally.