SEQUEL TO FLYING CRASH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 268, 12 October 1932, Page 8

SEQUEL TO FLYING CRASH.

APPEAL COURT CASE. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Oct. 12. The Court of Appeal is hearing the case of Dominion Airlines, Ltd. v. Strand. This case on appeal was argued before the Court of Appeal in July last. It presents considerable legal difficulties and the Court of Appeal' asked tor argument to be represented to another bench of Judges consisting of members Of both divisions of the Court, and that is. being done to-day. On the bench are Sir M. Myers (the Chief Justice), and Justices McGregor, Ostler, Smith and Kennedy. The iacts leading to the appeal are that on February 8, 1931, shortly after the Hawke’s Bay earthquake, a De Soutter monoplane belonging to Dominion Airlines, Ltd. (now in liquidation) was flying between Gisborne and Hastings, when it crashed in a field near Wairoa, the pilot, Mr Ivan Louis Right, and two passengers being killed. An action was subsequently commenced in the Supreme Court by Mr William 'I homas Srrand, father of Mr William Charles 0 Strand, one of the passengers who were killed, claiming under the Death by. Accident Compensation Act, the sum of £SOOO for the death of his son. He alleged the company had been guilty of a breach of its statutory duty in tailing to provide for the aeroplane a pilot holding a “B” pilot’s flying certificate issued under the Aviation Regulations, 1921. Plaintiff also alleged that the pilot had been negligent in flying at too low an altitude and at too greatly reduced speed, and in endeavouring to perform a turn into wind while * flying at too low mi altitude and at too greatly reduced speed. The company denied liability, contending that it was a term of the contract of carriage that it should not be placed under any liability in the event of an accident. The action was originally heard in Wellington in September, 1931, before Mr Justice Reid, who held that there was a casual connection between the breach of statutory duty which he found the company to have committed in failing to provide a pilot holding a “B” license, and the accident. He held that tire terms of the contract of carriage did not exonerate the company and awarded Mr Strand £3OOO damages. Argument is proceeding.