AIR DISASTER

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 238, 22 July 1935, Page 5

AIR DISASTER

LOSS OF THIRTEEN LIVES. DUTCH LINER IN SWITZERLAND. STRIKES HILLSIDE IN STORM. (United Piress Association —Copyright) ROME, July 20. A Douglas ’plane of the Royal Dutch air line, flying from Milan to Frankfort, crashed near San Bernardino, Switzerland, during a severe storm, and its 13 occupants were killed. Two of them were British and the others Dutch.

An official of the air line states that the pilot, M. van der Veist, when crossing the frontier of Switzerland, encountered fog and asked for a hearing from Milan 15 minutes before the crash. He then wound in his aerial because of a thunderstorm. He came came out of the clouds and found himself too neap the ground, and in attempting to climb up through the clouds hit the mountain-side. Villagers at San Bernardino state that the aeroplane crashed into the pine forest clothing a deep ravine, with such violence that debris was flung up. The propeller was later found embedded in a tree 50 yards away. Rescuers rushed to the spot, and found all dead but Mile. Hermanides, the first of the four stewardesses recently engaged, who was making her first trip from Holland. She was hastily extricated, but died in a few minutes.

The two British passengers were Commander Arthur Watts and Mr L. Mariano Nesbit, a mining engineer and author of romantic books on Abyssinia, where he travelled in districts from which no whites had previously returned alive. Commander Watts was hastening from Italy to rejoin his wife, who recently gave birth to a son.

On, July 17, a Douglas of the Royal Dutch Air Line crashed when taking off at Bushire, and was burned. The 11 occupants all escaped. On July M two passengers and four of the crew were killed when a big Fokker crashed at Amsterdam. Fourteen other occupants were uninjured. The Commander Watts - killed in Switzerland is Arthur Watts, the well-known “Punch” cartoonist.

THE SERVICE SUSPENDED. PENDING AN INVESTIGATION. AMSTERDAM, July 21. The public is deeply shocked at the third disaster in a week after a long period almost without tragedy. The air line announces the suspension of the Milan service until the cause of the disaster is established. It will be operated by Lufthansa, the German company. MOTHS COLLIDE IN MID-AIR. ONE PILOT LANDS SAFELY. MELBOURNE, July 21. One pilot, Harry Zacker, was killed and another, Theo Allen, miraculously glided to safety when two aero club Moths collided in mid-air at a turning point over Maribyrnong during a race on Saturday. The propeller of the machine which landed safely sliced off the tail and part of the fuselage of the other, which dropped like a stone.