CRASH INTO SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 80, 5 April 1933, Page 7

CRASH INTO SEA

U.S. AIRSHIP AKRON LARGEST IN WORLD OVER SEVENTY LIVES LOST ONLY THREE SURVIVORS

Onlted Press Association—By Electrlo Teletraph—CppyrlfihL (Received April 5, 10 a.m.) NEW YORK, April 4. The United States naval dirigible the Akron, queen of the world's airships, dropped into the sea off the New Jersey coast shortly after 1.30 on Tuesday morning, as a violent thunderstorm churned the skyways. Aboard her as she faltered and plummeted into the storm-swept sea were seventy-seven men, including Admiral William A. Moffett, Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics. Four men are reported to have been rescued, hut one of these later died. Every available agency is being pushed to the rescue. Seaplanes, landplanes, and coastguard boats sped towards the scene of the crash about twenty miles off Barneg^t Light, approximately forty-five miles from New York ' Harbour, The tanker Phoebus, flying the flag df the Danzig Free State, bound from New York for Tampico, was within a few miles of the Akron when the wireless spluttered an SOS through the static-choked skies at 1.30 a.m. There was no further word from the airship, which apparently descended rapidly, either falling,, or crippled to the point of a forced descent. Captain Dalldorf, of the' Phoebus, flashed the word to shore as he turned his slow-moving tanker, from her course that the Phoebus had rescued four survivors picked up from the sea. These were. Lieut.-Commander H. V. Wiley, second in command of the Akron, and three enlisted men: Moody Erwin, metalsmith; Richard Deal, boatswain's mate; and Robert Copeland, chief radio operator. Copeland died shortly afterwards. The Akron was on a test flight, which was to have taken her along the New England coast.. She was to have returned tomorrow. She returned a fortnight ago from an extended cruise to Panama. Lightning is believed to have struck the airship, though ( details are lacking. The Akron had, ridden out many worse storms. At 8 p.m. on Monday she reported: "All well" to Lakehurst.