GRAVE ALLEGATIONS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 58, 5 September 1925, Page 7

GRAVE ALLEGATIONS

SAFETY VALVES REMOVED

WAS IT A POLITICAL SPECTACLE?'

(DNITBD PRESS ASSOCIATION—COMRIOHT.) (ABSTKAUAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Eeeeived sth Sept., 11.50 a.m.) . NEW-YOBK, 4th September. Captain Anton Heinen, chief builder of the Shenandoah, said . ■ the death of the heroic fourteen was murder. . Against his advice, eight of the eighteen safety valves in the gas cell had been removed recently. This was done for the purpose of saving helium and preventing possible leakage. CHARGE AGAINST WASHINGTON The flight' over Ohio.. was . , made against the^ wishes of Commander Lansdowne, on orders from Washington, to gratify the politicians and as a spectacle for a string of country fairs. ..,■.' :■.■-'•

This charge is openly made by the widow of the commander. She declares that he had sought for a week 'a cancellation of the order, knowing as' a native of Ohio the danger of electrical storms at this period; but the secretary, Mr. Curtis Wilbur, insisted.

Close by, three widows of ' other victims, were met, and the "political route was their chief theme. . An officer who was present agreed with Mrs. Lansdowne.

Mr. Wilbur, ■at Washington, gave the statement a denial, saying that Commander Lansdowno was allowed .to choose.his own time.