AIRSHIP R101

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 5 November 1930, Page 5

AIRSHIP RlOl

INQUIRY INTO CRASH EVIDENCE lIY FRENCH EYEWITNESSES VESSEL’S LOW ALTITUDE lUnited Pross Association—By E/ectrlo Telegraph-Copyright) LONDON, 3rd November. At the continuation of tlie inquiry into the RlOl disaster, the evidence of several French eye-witnesses from Beauvais was taken. The witnesses ’generally agreed that tho airship was flying low horizontally, and rolling and dipping slightly. It nose-dived t\vicc._ The lights went out after each dive, and came on before the fire. Alfred Rabouille however, who was rabbit poaching in tlie wood at the time of the crash, stated that the airship was Hying at about 600 feet at a slight angle towards the earth, and from thoro dived more steeply, but it finly dived once. When it struck the ground it did not rebound, but flattened out and exploded. Ho added that it-came down 275 yards from liim. There was no breakage in mid-air before the fall.

Sir John Simon expressed the opinion that statements by witnesses that the lights went out were probably due to the disappearance from view as the vessel turned its nose into the wind.