AIRSHIP DISASTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21462, 8 April 1933, Page 11

AIRSHIP DISASTER

STORY OF SURVIVOR COLLAPSE IN HEAVY WIND CRAFT OUT OF CONTROL By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright WASHINGTON. April G One of the survivors of the Akron disaster, Lieutenant-Commander H. y. Wiley in an official report to the Navy Department to-day stated that apparently it was caused by a sudden, very sharp gust of wind, more severe than any he had ever experienced. He made the statement to the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Claude E. Swanson, tho other two survivors collaborating. Commander Wiley said: "Tho gust struck tho ship as it was fighting a storm off tho New Jersey coast at 12.30 a.m. on Tuesday. I noted immediately that the lower rudder control rope had carried away, and I reported it to Captain Deal. " I also reported that as I lay in my bunk on the right side of the ship I saw two girders above the corridor of the ship bend and buckle, and I noted as

I ran forward that the control lines in that vicinity of the ship appeared to be slack, but not broken. " It is difficult to synchronise accurately these observations in the control car, but apparently the damage to the girders occurred after the severe gust struck the ship and after the ship had begun its last descent, practically out of control, which terminated by the Akron striking the water, with tho consequent major structural damage." Commander Wiley said he had been submerged in the control car by water coming in through the window, but was then carried out of the window. He sought to reach tho airship again by swimming, as it Mas silhouetted in flashes of lightning. The Akron, however, waa drifting away rapidly. " At about 500 yards," he said, " I could see that the ship was entirely on the water, broken in two or three places and submerged to about one-third of her diameter,- with her bow, for a length of about 200 feet, inclined in the air at an angle of about 30 degrees. I saw several men in the water and heard their cries. None waa close to me."

Commander \yiley said he clung to a. board and was hauled on to the tanker Phoebus after having been in the water from 30 minutes to an hour.