SAFETY IN AIR

Evening Star, Issue 21624, 20 January 1934, Page 17

SAFETY IN AIR

COMPARATIVE FIGURES BRITAIN AND AMERICA. LONDON, January 10. ' Major C. C. Turner, chief instructor at the School of Military Aeronautics, Oxford, in an article in the ‘ Daily Telegraph,’ says: “It is remarkable that the statistics of the United States air lines for the first six months of 1933 explode tho prevalent _ belief that the higher speed of American commercial aeroplanes has been obtained at the cost of safety by Americans. In that period tho machines flew 24,668,000 miles, and carried 248,000 passengers, 913,000 miles being flown for each death. British machines flew 1,240,000 jiniles, carrying 29,000 passengers, 102,000 miles being flown for each death.” Major Turner says the City of Liverpool disaster made the period a bad one for Britain’s statistics. He goes on to say that Imperial Airways’ four-en-gined biplanes are the most comfortable in the world, but says Britain has neglected high-speed _ mail-carriers which have made America the leading air country. “ Safety,” Major Turner adds, “need not bo sacrificed for speed, regarding which Britain has a year’s leeway to make up.” He instances the French and Dutch high-speed flights to the Far East, and Germany’s plans for a great all-round increase of speed in 1934. [The City of Liverpool, while proceeding from Cologne to Croydon on March 28 last year, crashed and caught fire near Dixmude, Belgium, all twelve passengers and the crew, consisting of the pilot, engineer, and wireless operator, being killed. Ten persons were killed on December 30 when the Apollo crashed in Belgium.]