AIR TRAGEDIES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20603, 2 May 1935, Page 5

AIR TRAGEDIES.

Possible Claim for Lost Jewellery. NOTICE TO UNDERWRITERS. LONDON, March 21. Notice has been sent to underwriters at Lloyd’s of the possibility of a claim being made under a policy insuring for 6,000.000 francs (£85,000) jewellery which belonged to Mme Renard. With her husband, the Governor of French Equatorial Africa, Mme Renard perished aeroplane accident on the side of.the Congo River (states the “ Daily Telegraph ”). Seven persons were killed when the Belgian aeroplane in which they were travelling crashed in a Congo swamp. Mme Renard was formerly the widow of Mr Michael Winburn, American soap manufacturers When she accompanied her husband to Brazzaville, on his appointment as Governor, Mme Renard took her jewellery with her. The principal items were two pearl necklaces, one valued at 3.300,000 francs and the other at miles away. 2,000,000 francs or a little more. It is not known whether Mme Renard carried her jewels, or any part of them, on the tour of inspection on which her husband was engaged when the accident occurred. It has been considered advisable to inform the underwriters on the policy of the circumstances in case the jewels have been lost or damaged. The difficult}' of recovering jewellerv lost in an air crash was shown in the case of the Meopham disaster in Tulv, 1930. Jewellery believed to have been carried by two of the six victims, Mrs Loeffler and Viscountess Ednam. was estimated to have been worth between £40,000 to £60,000. Apart from a few pearls found close to where the bodies fell, there is no trace of any of the other missing jewellerv having been found. The greatest mystery concerned the disappearance of the hat which Mrs Loeffler was wearing. In the lining, it vas understood, a pearl necklace with diamond clasp had been placed for safety. It was thought that the hat. a light article, might have been caught by the gale and blown into a tree perhaps