DELAY IN RESCUE

Evening Post, Issue 13, 16 January 1936, Page 12

DELAY IN RESCUE

AEROPLANE DISASTER

CITY OF KHARTOUM INQUIRY,

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received January 16, 2.50 p.m.) | ALEXANDRIA, January 15.

Evidence when the inquest was ro sumed concerning the City of Khartoum disaster was directed to discovering why there was not an earlier rescue.

Mr. McMeeking, acting engineer and superintendent on the night of the disaster, said that he heard at 8 p.m. that the City of Khartoum had not yet landed, and he and Hough, the station superintendent, went to the landing stage to see if there was any sign of the aeroplane. They returned to the office, where Lieut.-Commander Micklethwait, of the destroyer Beagle, was waiting to meet a passenger from the aeroplane. Witness asked Micklethwait to put to sea. It was then 8.15 p.m. The Commander-in-Chief of tha British Fleet gave permission at 8.52, and the Beagle set out at 9.35, having been delayed in order to obtain information from an Imperial Airways aeroplane which had just arrived.

This evidence, combined with that of January 14, when it was stated that a noselight was seen at 7.15 p.m., shows that approximately 2i hours elapsed between the time of the accident and the beginning of the search.