AKRON DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 13 April 1933, Page 7

AKRON DISASTER

STORY TOLD BY SURVIVOR,

CRAFT FLYING OUT OF CONTROL

WASHINGTON, April 8. One of the survivors of the Akron disaster, Lieutenant-'CommandiA H.

V. Wiley in an official report to the

Navy Department to-day stated that apparently it was caused by a sudden, vary sharp gust of wind, more severe than any lie had ever experienced. He made the statement to the Secretary of the Navy, Mr Claude E. Swanson, the other two survivors collaborating. Commander Wiley said: “The gust struck the ship as it wag fighting a storm off the New Jersey coast at 12.30 a.m. on Tuesday. I noted immediately that the lower rudder conhad carried away, and I rel»orted it to 'Captain Deal. .

‘1 also reported that as I lay in my hunk on the right side of the ship I saw two girders above the corridor of the ship bend and ,buckle, and I noted as I ran forward that the control lines in that vicinity of the ship appeared to be slack, but not broken.

“It is difficult to synchronise accurately these observations in the control car, hut apparently the dam,age to the girders occurred after the severe gust struck the ship and after the ship had begun its last descent; practically out of control, which.terminated bv the Akron striking the water, with the consequent major structural damage.*’

j Commander Wiley said lie had been submerged in the control car -by water coming in through, the window, but was then carried out of the window. He sought to reach the airship again by swimming, as it wag silhouetted in flashes off lightning. The Akron, however, was . drifting away rapidly. “At about 500 .yards,” he said, “I could see that the ship was entirely on the water, broken in two or three places and submerged to I about one-third of her diameter, with ' her bow, for a length of about 200 feet, inclined in the air at ,an angle nf about 30 degrees. I saw .'several men in the water and heard their cries. None was close, to me Commander Wiley said he 'ching to a board and was hauled on,, to the tanker Phoebus after having (-been in the water for 30 minutes .to?an hour.