Air Thrill Above Iraq

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 670, 23 May 1929, Page 9

Air Thrill Above Iraq

LINER’S SENSATIONAL FALL 4,000 Feet Toward Floods (United P.A.—Bit Telegraph — Copyright) Times Cable. Received 11 a.lll. BASRA, Wednesday. AN Indian mail air-liner dropped like a stone from 4,000 feet with its engines stopped to within 400 feet of Lake Hammer, owing to its being caught in an air-poeket. the result of atmospheric conditions due to the Iraq floods

This is among the experiences of a Bagdad passenger from Basra. He adds: "The engines cut out, and the petrol temporarily was not reaching them, owing to the velocity of the fall. Luckily they functioned in the nick of time, when the pilot anticipated that a forced descent on the water was inevitable. The whole countryside is a most remarkable spectacle. Fully one-third of a distance of 350 miles is inundated and the railway is broken in two places where a mile of track disappeared. Cultivators are faced with enormous losses. The floods stretched to the horizon, interspersed with tiny islets of grain stacks.

The Euphrates is falling, but no benefit is possible downstream until the volumes of flood water are drained off the numerous depressions. The town of Mahmudiyah. 15 miles south of Bagdad, is submerged and heavy loss of life is reported from there. The river wall has broken at Nasiriyah and Hindvah. where a vast area of land has been converted into an inland sea. Further breaks are feared between Shaibah and Basra. Should they occur they would cause the airdromes of Imperial Airways, Ltd., and the Air Force at Shaibah to be inundated.