KYEEMA INQUIRY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 November 1938, Page 5

KYEEMA INQUIRY

♦ RETIREMENT OF MEMBER Asked for BY OWNERS OF LOST PLANE SAID TO BE DIRECTLY CONCERNED By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. MELBOURNE, November 15. There was an unexpected development at the inquiry into the loss of the air liner Kyeema today when Mr R. Scholl, for Australian National Airways, owners of the Kyeema, declared that Mr D. Ross, one of the permanent members of the Air Accidents Investigation Committee and superintendent of flying operations for the Civil Aviation Board, should not be; a member of the inquiry if certain matters were to be investigated. Mr Scholl, who said that Mr Ross should be available for cross-examina-tion, added that Mr Ross had been rebuked by the Controller of Civil Aviation for his attitude of hostility toward Australian National Airways. If the matter of the company’s maintenance manual was to be gone into, it involved interviews between members of the company and Mr Ross, who therefore should give evidence and be cross-examined. Mr Scholl said that, if the committee took the view that it could not sit without one particular member, application might be made for a retrospective reconstitution of the committee.' Mi - Ross was directly concerned in the disputes over the manuals and the matter of pilots starting in bad weather. After further, discussion this aspect of the inquiry was adjourned for consideration of Mr Scholl’s submissions.