MADMAN'S ACT?

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 81, 6 April 1933, Page 7

MADMAN'S ACT?

AIR LINER CRASH.

EXPERTS' FINDING.

City of Liverpool Fire Started in Passengers' Quarters.

SUSPICION FALLS ON VOSS,

(United P. A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

(Received 1 p.m.) BRUSSELS, April 5. The aviation experts who examined the debris of the Imperial Airways liner City of Liverpool which crashed near Dixmude, Flanders, 011 Tuesday with the loss of 15 lives, have decided that the petrol tank did not explode.

The passenger cabin, they consider, was 011 lire before the 'plane struck the ground. Nothing abnormal was discovered in the condition of the engines.

The Belgian experts, after completing their examination, decided that the fire was started in the passengers' lavatory, which is in the tail of the machine. This is shown by the fact that the lavatory door was burnt on the inside only.

They are convinced that Mr. Alfred Voss, of Manchester, was in the lavatory, as he leapt through the side door adjacent to the lavatory. The last two.nights Mr. Voss and Mr. Dearden (also a victim of the disaster) were in Brussels, were spent at cabarets entertaining women. Voss told one girl that she would soon see a lot about him in the newspapers. The men were drinking heavily.

The "Daily Express" Manchester correspondent states that Voss was a smuggler of heavily dutiable goods in connection with his dental business. His liabilities in Britain are estimated at £6000, and his debts abroad amount to many thousands of pounds.