LOST AIR LINER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22319, 17 January 1936, Page 10

LOST AIR LINER

o EVIDENCE AT INQUEST RESCUE EFFORTS DELAYED (Received January 16. 5.5 p.m.) ALEXANDRIA. Jan. 15 The hearing of evidence was resumed to-day at the inquest on the victims of the disaster to the air liner City of Khartoum. It was directed to discovering whv rescue efforts were not instituted earlier. Mr. McMeeking, who was actingengineer and superintendent at the seaplane station on the night of the disaster, said he heard at 8 p.m. that the City of Khartoum had not yet landed. He and Mr. Hough, the station superintendent, went to the landing stage tc see if there was a sign of the liner. Witness ?nd Mr. Hough returned to the office, where Lieutenant-Commander Micklethwait, of the destroyer Beagle, was waiting to meet a passenger from the aeroplane. Witness asked the officer to put out to sea. It was then 8.15 p.m. The Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet gave hi«_ permission at 8.52 p.m., and the Beagle set out at 9.35 p.m., having been delayed in order to obtain information from the pilot of an Imperial Airwaj-s machine which had just arrived. This evidence, combined with that given yesterday, when it was stated that the nose lights of the City of Khartoum were seen at 7.15 p.m., shows that approximately two and aquarter hours elapsed between the accident and the beginning of the search.