NEW GUINEA CRASH

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22618, 22 April 1948, Page 5

NEW GUINEA CRASH

NATIVES AS FREIGHT IMMEDIATE INQUIRY “INSTRUCTION DEFIED” SYDNEY April 21. An immediate inquiry into the allegations that New Guinea natives were being carried as freight instead of as passengers in the aircraft which crashed on Sunday at Lae has been promised by Mr. E. J. Ward, Minister of External Territories. The Minister added that he was amazed at a suggestion that companies were defying the recent refusal by the Civil Aviation Department to allow natives to be treated as freight. The manager of Guinea Air Traders said that the airliners in New Guinea had adopted the practice years ago of carrying natives on a poundage basis without safety belts. Government officials in New Guinea had condoned this. He himself had recently travelled with an officer of the civil administration in New Guinea in a plane carrying natives. He and the officer had seats and safety belts, but the natives sat on the floor without belts. When informed of these allegations Mr. Ward said: “This is all news to me. I would be amazed if such things were happening with the knowledge of the administrators of the territory. It certainly won’t go on any longer, though I realise that that is not much help to the poor devils who were killed.” After consulting the Minister of Civil Aviation, Mr. A. S. Drakeford, Mr. Ward added that before the war it had been the practice to carry natives as freight, but that after the war the Civil Aviation Department had informed operators that it must not continue.