PUBLIC UNEASY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23358, 29 May 1939, Page 6

PUBLIC UNEASY

CRASHES IN AUSTRALIA MACHINES OF ONE TYPE AIRWORTHINESS PROVED [from OUlt owx comiespondent] SYDNEY. May 11 Following the crashes within five days of a Royal Australian Air Force AvroAnson bomber at Richmond. New South Wales, and a similar machine at Tort Phillip, near Melbourne, with a total loss of seven lives, an inquiry into tlio efficiency of these aeroplanes and the procedure of training the personnel is to be,, undertaken. Several Avro-Ansons crashed last year, and the total death-roll is now more than 12. Public concern has been caused by the frequency with which this type of aeroplane has been involved in tragedies and mishaps, and in view of the uneasiness and the pressure of Parliamentary opinion, it is likely that the Federal Government will agree to a public inquiry. Hitherto investigations have been by Air Force officers and in secrecy. Part of the public uneasiness originated in suspicion concerning the condition of 40 Avro-Ansons chartered by the /Australian Government from Britain. Rumours were that these maehipes were second-hand and obsolete, but the Minister of Defence, Mr. Street, denied suggestions to that effect. They were all new, he said. Mr. Street said the most searching inquiry had revealed nothing to suggest any weakness or any lack of airworthiness in the type. He had been assured by the Air Board that the Anson machine was thoroughly airworthy, and that it presented no difficulties in management in the air. In his opinion the number of accidents which had occurred to the machines was duo wholly to the fact that the type was one of the principal types now used in the service. A rising accident incidence seemed .to be inseparable from an important expansion of activities.