R101 INQUIRY

Evening Star, Issue 20633, 5 November 1930, Page 9

RlOl INQUIRY

EVIDENCE OF FRENCH WITNESSES NO BREAKAGE IN MID-AIR. Prtu Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, November 3. At the airship inquiry the evidence of several French eye-witnesses from Beauvais was taken. The witnesses generally agreed that the airship was flying low, and rolling and dipping slightly. It nosedived twice, and the lights went out after each dive- and came on before the fire, but Alfred Rabouille, who was rabbit poaching in the wood at the time of the crash, stated that the airship was flying at about 600 ft at a slight angle towards the earth. From there it dived more steeply, but it only dived once, when it struck the ground. It did not rebound; it flattened out and exploded. He added that it came down 275yds from him. There was no breakage in mid-air before the I all.

Sir John Simon expressed the opinion that the statement by witnesses that the lights went out were probably duo to their disappearance from view as tho vessel turned her nose into tho wind.