AIR LINER TRAGEDY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18588, 24 December 1934, Page 5

AIR LINER TRAGEDY

RECOVERY OF BODIES

THEORIES AS TO CRASH

BAGHDAD, Dec. 22. The salvage party found the Douglas air liner upside down. The bodies of two passengers and three of the crew were several yards from the plane, and one wheel of the undercarriage and one propeller were some distance away. The tail and the rear portion of the fuselage were intact.

It is suggested that the pilot was endeavoringi to land at- the height of a thunderstorm and chose a stretch of ground looking, in the fitful light of the almost continuous lightning, like a possible landing place, but really little better than a swamp, and the plane violently overturned and broke to pieces, and 'fire was inevitable.'

When extricated from tho .smouldering debris, the victims wero burnt until identification was almost impossible. Ambulance men carried the remains to the armored cars, in which the rescue party arrived. A large proportion of the mails were salvaged. A post-mortem examination disclosed 'that the victims died from concussion. Most of their limbs were broken. They will be buried to-morrow in the British cemetery.