FIRST ANNIVERSARY
Loss Of Samoan Clipper
On her first commercial flight from Honolulu to New Zealand, Pan-Ameri-can Airways’ Samoan Clipper crashed after leaving Pago Pago for Auckland a year ago today. The master, Captain Edwin C. Musick, and his crew of six were all killed.
After two survey flights to New Zealand the clipper left Auckland on her initial north-bound commercial flight on January 2 last year. Less than a week after reaching Honolulu she left again for Auckland, carrying a quantity of express freight. She left Pago Pago at 5.30 a.m. on January 12, and 38 minutes later Captain Musick reported that one of the motors had developed an' oil leak and he was returning to Pago Pago. The last message from the clipper was at 8.27 a.m., when Captain Musick reported that he was dumping excess fuel before landing at Pago Pago. Following a search, the crew of the United States minesweeper Avocet’s launch, discovered fragments of wreckage from the clipper 14 miles northwest of Pago Pago. A United States Air Commerce Bureau investigating board found that the probable cause of the crash was fire and explosion occurring during the dumping of fuel, but stated that it was unable to determine what caused the fuel to ignite.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19390112.2.58
Bibliographic details
Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 92, 12 January 1939, Page 8
Word Count
209FIRST ANNIVERSARY Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 92, 12 January 1939, Page 8
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in