BROKE IN PIECES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 82, 7 April 1933, Page 7

BROKE IN PIECES.

FATE OF THE AKRON. SURVIVOR'S STORY. Huge Airship Buckled By Sudden, Terrific Wind. CONTEOL CARRIED AWAY. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph-Copyright.) (Received 11 a.m.) WASHINGTON", April 6. A sudden and very sharp gust of wind more severe than any he had ever experienced, was given by Lieutenant-Commander "Wiley, one of the three survivors of the Akron, on Thursday in an official report to the Navy, as the apparent cause of the disaster. He made a statement to the Secretary to the Navy, Mr. Claude E. Swanson, in which the two other survivors collaborated. Commander Wiley said: "The gust struck the ship as it was fighting a storm off the New Jersey coast at 0.30 a.m. on Tuesday. J noted immediately that the lower rudder control rope had carried away, and I reported it to Captain Deal. "I also reported that as I lay in my bunk on the right side of the ship I saw two girders above the corridor of the ship bend and buckle, and I noted as I ran forward that the control lines in that vicinity of the ship appeared slack, but not broken."

It is difficult to synchronise accurately these observations in the control car, but apparently the damage to the gilders occurred after the severe gust struck the ship and after the ship had begun its last descent, practically out of control, and which terminated by the Akron striking the water, with the consequent major structural damage. Washed Out of Control Car. Commander Wiley said that he had been submerged in the control car by water coming in through the window, and was then carried out of the window. He sought to reach the airship by swimming, as it was silhouetted in the lightning flashes. The Akron, however, was drifting away rapidly. "At about 600 yards," he said, "I could see that the ship was entirely on the water, broken in two or three places and submerged to about onethird of her diameter, with her bow, for a length of about 200 feet, inclined in the air at an angle of about 30 degrees. I saw several men in the water and heard their cries. None was close to me."

Commander Wiley said lie clung to a board and was hauled aboard the Phoebus after being in the water 30 minutes to an hour.