LOSS OF KAKA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 50, 8 December 1948, Page 6

LOSS OF KAKA

Further Evidence Heard COURSE TAKEN RY PLANE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day. If the aircraft had continued on the course it was following when she glimpsed it in a cloud-break • over Rangataua at 2.06 p.m. on October 23, it, should have bypassed Mount Ruapehu by about a mile and a-half, although it was then off its usual course by about that distance, 'said Mrs Beth Weedon Gilberd, the first witness when the hoard inquiring into the Ruapehu disaster resumed to-day. The chairman of the board is Sir Harold Johnston, K.C. Other members are Wing-Commander J. W. H. Bray, R.N.Z.A.F., and Captain K. A. Brownjohn, of Tasman Empire Airways. „ „ Mr W. H. Cunningham appears for the Air Department and Mr D. W. Virtue for National Airways Corporation. Mrs Gilberd, wife of a railwayman at Rangataua, which is about eight miles distant from the summit of Ruapehu, said She had had experience in identifying aircraft types during the war. The machine she glimpsed through a break in the cloud on October 23 was definitely a Lockheed.. It was flying in a north-north-west direction to the west of her house, against strong head winds. The engines sounded normal. Robert Henry Schofield, _ stationmaster at Rangataua, which is a few mjiles south-east of Ohalcune, gave corroborative evidence. He said the plane was definitely to the west of the station, and was flying in a northerly, or possible a north-northwest-erly direction. Constable Walter G. Adsett, of Ohakune, who was in the police party which reached the wreckage on October 30, said the plane appeared to have struck a perpendicular rock outcrop and then slid clown a valley for 50 yards He described the position of various portions of the wreckage. Most of the pqssengers were in the passenger cabin on the floor of the cabin, and most of them had the hack portion of the seat strapped to them. The pilot was at the controls on the left-hand side. The co-pilot’s body was under the starboard wing-tip, and two other bodies were found in the snow beside a break near the third window. They had apparently fallen through this break on the port side. There was no break on the starboard side. If Russell had been in the copilot’s seat he might have been able to escape. The cockpit was crumpled. All of the dead had shocking head injuries and probably died instantaneously. Constable Adsett said lie was asked by the Inspector of Accidents to examine the wrist watches and any other instruments he could read. He recovered three watches, all ladies’ watches. Commander Hare’s watch had only the hour hand intact. Four more watches were later handed to him. They had broken away from their owners.- He looked for a clock oi the instrument panel, but could not see one. Later the dial of a clock and portion of an altimeter dial were found at the rock outcrop where the plane struck.