AIR INQUIRY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 161, 8 June 1929, Page 9

AIR INQUIRY.

COUNSELS’ ADDRESSES. SYDNEY, June 7. At the conclusion of the evidence taken by the Committee of Inquiry set up to investigate the forced landings of tho Southern Cross and the Kookaburra, also the loss of the search aeroplane DH9A, counsel for tho aviators severely attacked the newspapers which were responsible for the suggestion that tho forced landing and getting lost had all been prearranged. Mr Myers, counsel for Lieutenant Anderson’s relatives, submitted that Lieutenant Anderson was actuated by the best of motives when he started out. There was no evidence that ho sought any reward, but the great mistake the authorities had made was leaving the search for Lieutenant Anderson too long. Mr Hammond, K.C., who assisted the commission, stated that he was satisfied the honour and honesty of the Southern Cross crew had been established. It was lamentable that the public should have been so ready to receive and repeat the slanderous statements appearing in a section of the Press about men whom so recently it had delighted to honour and cheer for their pluck and skill in the air. It was inconceivable to think that men of the calibre of Messrs Litchfield and McWilliams should be deceived into being lost, much less to think they would become parties to such an enterprise by design. Either they were in the swim, or they were fooled, and the evidence showed that nothing of the kind had existed. Mr McWilliams, however, had taken the view that there would have been a risk in converting his radio set into a transmitter and this was an error of judgment on his part, but there was no evidence that any of tho crew desired to remain hidden from the world.