CRASH IN STORM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 22 July 1935, Page 5

CRASH IN STORM

ANOTHER DUTCH AIR LINER thirteen occupants killed TWO BRITISH INCLUDED (United Press Association—By Electrio Telegraph—Copyright 1 MILAN, 20th July. Tile Royal Dutch air liner PTIAKG lof the flying-hotel type, eu route from : Milauto Frankfurt crashed near San Berj nardino, Switzerland, during a. severe ■ storm. The thirteen occupants killed included two British, and the others were Dutch. The cause of the disaster is unknown. BERNE, 20th July. The British dead in the Hying disaster are Commander Arthur Watts, and Mr Louis Mariano Nesbit, mining engineer, and the author of romantic books on Abyssinia, where be adventurously travelled in districts from which whites had formerly not returned alive, i Commander Watts was hastening from Italy to rejoin his wife, who recently gave birth to her second son. COLLISION WITH MOUNTAINSIDE An Airline Company official states that Pilot Van der Veist, when crossing ; the frontier of Switzerland, encountered fog. He asked for his bearing from Milan fifteen minutes before the crash. 110 then wound in his aerial owing to a thunderstorm. He came out of the clouds and found himself too near the ground and therefore attempted to climb up through the clouds and collided with the mountainside. Villagers of San Bernardino, state that the ’plane crashed into a pine forest clothing a deep ravine with such I violence that debris was flung up. The propellor was later found embedded in a tree fifty yards distant. Rescuers rushed to the spot and found all dead but Mademoiselle llermanides, the first of four stewardesses recently engaged, who was making her first trip from Holland. She was hastily extricated but died in a few minutes. Commander Arthur Watts D.S.O. was a son of the Deputy Surgeon-General Joseph Watts. He was a contributor of humorous drawings to “Punch”, “Life.” etc. During the war he served l in tho R.N.V.R. and was in the Zeei brugge Raid of 23rd April 1918 for which he received the D.S.O. He was also at the sinking of the Vindictive in Ostend Harbour on 10th May 1918. His publications include “A Painter’s Anthology.” PUBLIC DEEPLY SHOCKED THIRD DISASTER WITHIN A WEEK HAGUE, 20th July. The public are deeply shocked at the third disaster in a week, after a. long period almost without tragedy. Tho Airline announces the suspension of the Milan service until the cause of tho disaster is established. It will be operated by Lufthansa.