SOUTHERN CROSS LANDING

Evening Star, Issue 20196, 8 June 1929, Page 18

SOUTHERN CROSS LANDING

INQUIRY CONCLUDED ADDRESSES BY COUNSEL. Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright SYDNEY, June 7. Tho air inquiry has concluded. Counsel lor the aviators severely at' tacked the newspapers which wore responsible for the suggestion that the forced landing and getting lost had all been prearranged. Mr Myers, counsel for Lieutenant Keith Anderson’s relatives, submitted that Anderson was actuated by the best of motives when ho started out. There was no evidence that lie sought any reward. A great mistake the authorities made was in leaving the search for Anderson too long. Air Hammond, who is assisting the committee, said he was satisfied that the honour and honesty of the Southern Cross crew had been established. It was lamentable that the public should have been so ready to receive and Repeat the slanderous statements which appeared in a section of tho Press about men whom they were so recently delighted to honour and cheer for their pluck and skill in the air. It was inconceivable that men of the calibre of Litchfield and M'William should be deceived into being lost, much less that they would become xmrtits to such an enterprise by design. Either they were in the swim or they weio fooled, and the evidence showed that nothing of the kind existed, M'Williani, however, had taken the view that there would have been a risk in converting his radio set into a transmitter. This was an error of judgment on his part, but there was no evidence that any of the crew desired to remain hidden from the world.