LOST MONOPLANE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 111, 11 April 1931, Page 9

LOST MONOPLANE

INQUIRY OPENED. FLIGHT LIEUTENANT ULM’S EVIDENCE. SYDNEY, April 10. The Federal Air Accidents Investigation Committee has opened an inquirv into the loss of the monoplane Southern Cloud. Flight Lieutenant C. T. Ulm, Director of Australian National Airways, the owners of the ’plane, stated in evidence that although the maximum load of the company’s aeroplanes was 10,225 pounds, the total weight of the Southern Cloud on the day of its disappearance was 10,099 pounds. I was considered that there was at* ample safety margin in that respect. The decision as to whether or not any aeroplane should start if the weather was unfavourable, also the choice of route, was left absolutely to the judgment of the pilot. He was not prepared to- admit that such a policy overloaded the pilots with responsibility. Lieutenant Ulm emphasised that an inspection of the company’s aeroplanes was going on the whole time. The standard of inspection, he claimed, was the highest in the world. The company’s chief engineer went to England and had ten months’ experience in a factory where triple-engine machines were built. The company also brought out four engineers who had served in that particular factory. Between Sydney and Melbourne there were probably 100,000 square miles of country where a big aeroplane like the Southern Cloud could not land without something being broken or damaged, but even if one engine failed the flight could be completed with the other two. The question of installing wireless in the company’s ’planes was now receiving attention, Lieutenant Ulm stated. The company’s aeroplanes had flown 671.000 miles since the inception of the service without a single mishap.