AIRLINER CRASHES

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31782, 12 September 1968, Page 15

AIRLINER CRASHES

95 Aboard Caravelle (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) NICE, Sept 11. A French Caravelle jet airliner with 95 persons aboard crashed in the Mediterranean today. Wreckage was sighted off Cap d’Antibes, west of Nice, on the Riviera.

There has been no report of survivors.

Rescue helicopters have reported finding one body floating in the sea. A search aircraft had earlier given the position of the wreckage as about 12 nautical miles south-south-east of Cap d’Antibes. The Air France plane was on a regular flight from Marseilles to Ajaccio, in Corsica, and back to Nice, on the French Riviera, carrying 89 passengers and a crew of six on both legs of the flight A spokesman for the air. line said the aircraft left Ajaccio at 10.5 a.m. and should have landed at Nice 40 minutes later.

A Nice airport spokesman says the aircraft’s pilot radioed that he was in difficulties because the plane was on fire. Ten minutes before the airliner was due to land radio contact between the control tower and the aircraft was lost. Aircraft from the French Air Force and French warships in the area were immediately put on the alert, and a Constellation search aircraft took off from Toulouse In heavy rain.