40 Killed In French Crash

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30235, 13 September 1963, Page 13

40 Killed In French Crash

( N .Z .P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) PERPIGNAN (Southern France), September 12. Wreckage of a French Viking airliner, which crashed with 36 British holidaymakers on board, has been sighted on a mountain called Pic de la Rocaille, police said today, Reuter reported.

1 he British United Press said that first reports said there were no survivors.

A team of parachutists werg the first searchers to find the wreckage, more than 3000 feet up the mountain.

The plane, a twin-engined Viking of Airnautic, left Gatwick at 7.40 p.m. yesterday with 36 Britons booked through a Lancashire travel agency for an inclusive holiday. The aircraft carried a crew of four, all French.

The Viking was due to fly non-stop from Gatwick to Perpignan, near the FrenchSpanish border, in four hours.

The passengers were booked for a 12-day holiday on the Costa Brava at a cost of between £35 and £4O each.

The plane lost radio contact with Perpignan control tower within the approaches of the airport, officials said.

Residents of the small spa city of Vernet-les-Bains, south-west of Perpignan, reported they had heard the sound of an aircraft which appeared to be circling over the city late last night. A

thunderstorm was sweeping the area at the time. Skies were still lowering and grey early today. Another British aircraft on a night flight from Gatwick to Perpignan was diverted to Toulouse because of turbulence over southern France. The weather in the area, heavy rain and low cloud, hampered the search for the aircraft.

Communications between the French south coast and Paris were disrupted. Viking airliners, made by Vickers, were a feature of the British European Airways fleet in the early 19505, but they have now been replaced. These twin-engined aircraft were the first completely new post-war airliners to fly in the world. A spokesman for the travel agents said there were no children among the bookings for the Viking flight, but equal numbers of men and women.

A little less thain two years ago a chartered airliner from Gatwick crashed on a night flight to Perpignan, Reuter said. On that occasion 34 people died when a Dakota aircraft crashed in the Pyrenees.