CRASH OF DUTCH AIRLINER

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25969, 24 November 1949, Page 7

CRASH OF DUTCH AIRLINER

Findings of Inquiry Rejected BLAME PLACED ON PILOT (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 23. The Minister of Civil Aviation (Lord Pakenham) took an unprecedented step last night when he rejected the findings of the inquiry, which he himself set up, into the crash of a Dutch K.L.M. Constellation at Prestwick, last October, says the “Daily Telegraph." Forty persons were killed when the aircraft hit some high-tension cables in a dense fog, and caught fire. The inquiry found the airfield staff partly to blame. Lord Pakenham exonerates them. Mr T. P. McDonald, K.C., who presided over the inquiry, says in his report that radio-telephone conversations between Prestwick airport and the aircraft were unsatisfactory and that there was a grave lack of supervision in the meteorological office at Prestwick. Lord Pakenham says the ground staff gave full information and co-operation. Mr McDonald, in a letter to Lord Pakenham. has expressed his emphatic dissent. The letter said: “As neither you nor the Secretary of State for Air were present in the aircraft at the time of the pilot’s decision (to circle the airfield at low altitude! there can be no other relevant basis-for an attitude which renders the whole procedure of an impartial public inquiry nugatory if not indecently farcical. It is plain to me that the purpose is to impute, without evidence, the sole responsibility to a dead man. a Yiilot of unblemished record and of unrivalled experience.” The pilot was Commander K. E. Parmentier. t . Mr McDonald’s report said that one of the contributory causes of the crash was the failure of the airport officials to report weather deterioration to the pilot.