AIR TRAGEDIES

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 95, 23 April 1935, Page 11

AIR TRAGEDIES

MISSING JEWELLERY

Notice has been sent to underwriters at Lloyd's of the possibility of a claim being made under a policy insuring for 6000,000 francs (£85,000) jewellery which belonged to Mme. Kenard. - With her husband, the Governor of French Equatorial Africa, Mme. Henard perished in an aeroplane accident on the side of the Congo River (states Seven persons were killed when the Belgian aeroplane in which they were travelling crashed in a'Congo swamp. Mme. Benard was formerly the widow of" Mr.' Michael Winburn, American soap manufacturer. • , When she Accompanied her husband to Brazzaville, on his appointment as Governor, Mme. Kenard took her jewellery with her. The principal items were two pearl necklaces, one valued at 3,300,000f and the other at 2,000,000f or a little more. It is not known whether Mme. Henard carried her jewels, or any part of them, on the tour of inspection on which her husband was engaged when the accident occurred. It has been considered advisable to inform the underwriters on the policy of the circumstances in case the jewels have been lost or damaged. , The difficulty of recovering jewellery lost in an air crash was shown in the case of the Meopham disaster in July, 1930. Jewellery believed to have been carried by two of the six victims, Mrs. Loeffler and Viscountess Ednam, was estimated to have been worth between £40,000 to £60,000.

Apart from a few pearls found close to where the bodies fell, there is no trace of any of the other missing jewellery having been found.

The greatest mystery concerned «the disappearance of the hat which Mrs. Loeffler was wearing. In the lining, it was understood, a pearl necklace with diamond clasp had been placed for safety..

It was thought that the hat, a light article, might have been caught by the gale and blown into a tree perhaps miles away.