WAIROA AIR SMASH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17908, 12 October 1932, Page 11

WAIROA AIR SMASH

CLAIM FOR DAMAGES -\*av ? hLITIGATION CONTINUES j < v| tLEGAL DIFFICULTIES (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. The Court of Appeal is hearing the case of Dominion Air’ Lines, Limited, v. Strand. This c-nse, which was argued before the Court of Appeal in July last, presents considerable legal difficulties, and the court asked for the ! argument, to be represented to another bench of judges consisting of members of both diivsions of the court. That is being done to-day. On the bench aro Sir Michael Myers, Mr Justice MacGregor, Mr Justice Ostler, Mr Justice Smith, and Mr Justice Kennedy. .The facts leading to the appeal are that on February 8> 1931, shortly after the Hawke’s Bay earthquake, a Do scatter monoplane belonging to Dominion Air Lines, Limited, now in liquidation, when flying between Gisborne and Hastings, crashed in a field near Wuiron. the pilot, Ivan Louis Right,” and two passengers being killed.

An action was subsequently commenced in the Supreme Court by William Thomas Strand, father of William Charles Strand, one of the passengers who was killed, claiming under the Death and Accident Compensation Act the sum of £SOOO for tlio death of his son. He alleged that the company had .been guilty of a breach of its statutory duty in failing to provide for an aeroplane pilot holding a B pilot’s ilying certificate issued under the aviation regulations, 1921, and 6lso alleged that the pilot had been negligent in flying at too' low an altitude, and at too greatly a reduced speed, and in endeavoring to perform a'turn into the wind while flying at too low an altitude, and at too greatly a reduced speed. The company denied liaibility, con tending that it was a term of the contract’ nrf the carriage that it would not be placed under any liability in the event'of an accident.

The action was originally hoard in Wellington in September. 1931, before Mr Justice Read, who held that there was a causual connection between a breach of statutory- duty, which he found the company to have committed in failing to provide a pilot holding a B license, and the accident. He Held that the terms of the' contract of carriage did not exonerate the company, and awarded Strand £3OOO damages.

Legal argument is proceeding