AIRLINE MYSTERY

Evening Star, Issue 22047, 5 June 1935, Page 11

AIRLINE MYSTERY

After four days of exhaustive search' a grim-. secret" was found hidden in th* depths of an African jungle recently* It solved the mystery of what had bfv come of. a French air liner and it* pocujparits, M. Edouard Reuavd. Covernor of French Equatorial. Africa) hi*/ beautiful actress wife, and ftvo friends. The of the machine and th* dead bodies of the seven people were found lying ampng ; the debris of jungle trees and plants near the outpost of Mossaka, in the Belgian Congo. M, I’enard and his party took off front Braeeaville to fly 400 miles to Coquilhatvilje, and three hours later theip pilot broadcast the warning that h* was lighting a tornado and heavy fog. 1 That was the last call received front the machine. When it failed to turn up aeroplapes containing observers flew over the jungle, which was searched by tracking parties, The tragedy Was revealed when M Gillard* the pilot ’of the machine, saw strange marks on tb* forest near Mossaka, which Paused him to land. - . Reporting on the discovery, h* stated thb air liner was splintered and must have struck the ground at great speed. AR tie occupants were killed at once.- Fog and lach of visibility following * tornado caused the disaster. “ The aeroplane.” he stated, “ dived Into swampy fordst land at a point between Mossaka and Boloho and near the junction of the Youmbi and Conga Rivers. Here the Congo is studded with hundreds, of tiny islets covered with long grass and thick forest, iu which it. was,impossible to land.” M. Renard and his wife were, well-known, figures in the political ami social life i of Paris. »■ '■ V ,