PLANE CRASH AT BLENHEIM

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27094, 18 July 1953, Page 8

PLANE CRASH AT BLENHEIM

CAUSE OF ACCIDENT NOT DETERMINED

Report on official INQUIRIES

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, Jqlv 17, No cause can be determined for the crash of a Royal New Zealand Air Force Bristol Freighter south of Blenheim on May 27. The five occupants of the,plane were killed. For reasons not determined by the official inquiries, the plane failed to maintain its specified course after entering cloud. The Minister of Defence (Mr T. L. Macdonald) said today that the accident had been fully investigated by a service Court of Inquiry and by the Accidents Investigation Branch. The investigation did not support some evidence that the engines might have been “labouring” at the time of the accident. The navigational error involved in the aircraft’s departure from course had originated within the aircraft. Those who lost their lives were Group Captain R. Webb, station commander at Whenuapai; Flight Lieutenant J. A. Brookes, captain of the aircraft; Flight Sergeant P. G. Diebert; Sergeant J. B. Collins, navigator; and Sergeant T. P. Dean, signaller. The Minister said the aircraft took off from Woodbourne for Whenuapai on a routine flight. Although low cloud required that the flight should be made under instrument conditions, a post-accident study of the weather showed that it was not in any respect abnormal. Until it climbed into cloud a few minutes after taking off, the aircraft was on course. The established time of the accident and the position where it occurred indicated that the plane then developed a turn which continued till the aircraft struck a hill some miles off course a few minutes later.

“Nothing has been revealed that reflects upon the airworthiness of the aircraft or its equipment,” ,Mr Macdonald said. “The evidence establishes that the engines were operating normally up to the time of the accident.”

Mr Macdonald said that both the aids to air navigation provided for the Blenheim area—the Wairau bar and Cape Campbell radio beacons—were functioning accurately at the time of the flight.