THE SHENANDOAH

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 7 September 1925, Page 5

THE SHENANDOAH

CAUSE OF DISASTER

AN OFFICER’S ALLEGATIONS

CHARGES TO HE INVESTIGATED

BY CABLE—PRRSP .SSOCTATTON-COPYRIGHT WASHINGTON, Sept. 4

The Navy Department will investigate the charge by Captain Enton Heinen that the removal of eight of the eighteen safety valves in the gas cells of the wreaked airship Shenandoah was the direct cause of the disaster.

Captain Heinen said that in an attempt to save precious lieliuni tlie men pave their lives foolishly, and lie declared that the number of valves was insufficient to allow the escape of gas necessary when the storm suddenly forced the ship upwards, causing a rapid expansion of the gas cells, which broke the shell of the ship in the middle. It is pointed out that twenty valves weie installed on the Los Angeles for safety. Captain Heinen crossed the Atlantic on the Los Angeles, and was construction expert on the Shenandoah. _ The information in the hands of the Navy Denartment indicates that Commander Lunsdowne, one of the % ictims, authorised the valve changes recently as the i-esidt of previous cross-country flying with the Shenandoah. Old) CONTROVERSY REVIVED. WASHINGTON, Sept.' 5. The destruction of the Shenandoah lias heightened the conflict of the battleship versus aircraft over President Coolidge’s economy programme. The President desires a new dirigible; Mr. Curtis Wilbur (Secretary to the Navy) considers that maintenance ot the surface fleet at its present standand is more important, while the' navy chiefs favour dirigible development. Unless Congress grants three hundred million annually needed for other purposes, the spending of two rnillion on a dirigib»e is thought foolish, und while "both the army and the navy lack service planes expense on a more hazardous dirigible operation is considered folly. ' . , Mr. Wilbur is anxious to retain the dirigible Los Angeles for training and experimental purposes, instead of leasing it to a private corporation for a commercial service as .suggested. the Los Angeles was bought from Geimanv on condition that it was employed only for peaceful purposes. HI'S FAITH UNSHAKEN. COMMODORE BURNEY’S VIEWS. LONDON, Sent. 4. Commander Burney asserts that the Shenandoah disaster has not shaken his faith in airships. The Shenandoah was ten years old and the design was almost the same as that of R 33. He did not think such ships were sufticiently strong -to enable them to weather abnormal conditions. He was most confident that scientists before long would succeed in designing a large, perfectly safe airship. It was realised that the present shins wer e not strong enough, and care would be taken that the Empire airwav service shins would be twice the present strength. It must he remembered that, like all things, the airship must have birth pangs. All aeroplanes once crashed owing to wings breaking in mid-air. The first naval destroyers broke their bucks 311 the North Sea.