AN OFFICER’S STORY.

Wairarapa Age, 6 April 1933, Page 5

AN OFFICER’S STORY.

GREAT SHIP BEATEN DOWN BY STORM. DEMOLISHED UPON IMPACT WITH WATER. NEW YORK, April 4. A, message from Lieut.-Commander Wiley arid: “Akron ran into electrical storm at 12.30 a.m. while it was blowing st.ong and raining hard. Surrounded by lightning at the Light (presumably the Barnegat Light). Night atmosphere not very turbulent. Ran east course until about 11 p.m. Crossed to west at midnight. Sighted the light on the ground. Changed course to 130 degrees. Ship began to descend rapidly from flying altitude. Dropped ballast. Ship became entirely surrounded by lightning. About 12.30 ship began to descend rapidly from a flying altitude of 1600 feet. Dropped ballast forward and regained altitude. Three minutes later seemed to be in the centre of the storm and the ship began to shift about violently. Called all hands. Ship commenced to descend with stern inclined downward. Dropped ballast. Rudder control carried away. Descent continued to water. Ship demolished upon impact. In lightning flash saw many men swimming. Wreckage drifted rapidly away. Discipline in control car perfect.” FEW SURVIVORS. BODY OF LIEUT.-COMMANDER PICKED UP. NEW YORK, April 4. A later message said that the body of Lieut.-Commander Harold Maclellan had been picked up by the coastguard. The tanker Phoebus and the coastguard cutters Mojave and McDougal, were then standing by searching floating wreckage for possible survivors. None except the four originally picked up b®* ll foun< t The mess age indicated that the rescue ships had not found the lost airship when they arrived at the scene, as there were only small pieces of wreckage floating about. Eariier reports from the Phoebus aaid that a 45-mile-an-hour wind was driving the hulk of the dirigible offshore at an estimated rate of twelve miles an hour, making rescue doubly difficult. It is believed that the Akron has gone to the bottom. The Akron left Lakehurst at 7.3 p.m. on Monday, commanded by Captain F. C. McCord. Mr. Copeland, who died after rescue, was chief wireless operator on the Akron. The cutter Me Dougal reported at 10.45 a.m. that she had picked up fragments of wreckage consisting of light tubular pipes covered with kapok. The Phoebus reported earlier that when she approached the scene of the crash ? he found mattresses and wreckage floating in the water After rescuing three men those on board saw others sink before thev could be reached. Wreckage and many men were on the water when last seen. Lieut. Wilfred Bushnell, one of the of A" v k ,7 )n ’ is the eo holder ot the world’s balloon record for distance made with Lieut. T. W G Settle in 1929. settle 12 UNLUCKY SERCHERS , a SMALL AIRSHIP WRECKED. TWO MEN LOST. The . u, NKW YORK ' April 4. J in t? bllm P (non-rigid airship) Akl ' retura '"g from a sear™ for the ™ rv ’l ors ; 1 topped into the surf TersJl b^ rdwaik Beachhaven, New ?Xued a" ° f T CreW Of Beve " for A*™ A na Y aeroplane searching off WaS miS9in « for * wasr°Jort C ed erSCyCOaSt ' bUt lat " ' ‘ D ONE >. STATEMENT BY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN. The >, • WASHINGTON, April 4 Committee a '7Mr n £ NaVa ’ (Mr. Vinson) said: “There

won’t be any more big airships built. We have built three and lost two.” FAITH UNSHAKEN. DR. ECKENfiR’S CONFIDENCE IN AIRSHIPS. BERLIN, April 4. Though shocked by the Akron disaster, Dr. Eckener, designer and commander of the Graf Zeppelin, declares that whatever happened could not shake his complete faith in airships. Until the causes of the Akron crash were established he could not say whether it would necessitate a change of plans in the construction of the new German airship. SEVENTY-THREE MISSING. NO HOPE OF FURTHER RESCUES. (Received Wednesday, 8.55 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 4. The crash of the Akron early on Tuesday off the Jersey coast was reckoned to-day to be the most costly disaster in the history of aviation, with only three out of seventy-six saved. Hundreds of vessels, naval and civilian, concentrated off Barnegat Light this morning, determined to renew with dawn the pursuit of a faint chance that others might be saved. It is believed in authoritative circles that the missing men were trapped in the debrie, which sank. ANOTHER CRASH. FRENCH AIRSHIP BREAKS IN TWO. (Received Wednesday, 11.10 p.m.) SAINT NAZAIRE, April 5. The semi-rigid dirigible E 9, in the course of a test flight from Rochelle, with a crew* of 12, crashed in open country at Guerande, and broke in two. Two officers were injured. FRAGILE MAMMOTHS. AIRSHIPS IN BAD WEATHER. Some observations on the Akron disaster were made by Mr. J. H. Preston, Ground Engineer to the Wairarapa Aero Club, when he was interviewed by an “Age” representative. Mr. Preston served for two years on the R 33 and other large British airships of the Zeppelin type. The probability, he said, that, in the weather conditions described, lightning and heavy gusty winds had buckled and broken portions of the light metal framework of the American airship and that this in turn had pierced some of the gas containers, so that the ship lost lifting power and was unable to maintain buoyancy. The ballast carried by big airships is water contained in large rubber bags, slung at intervals amidships. The whole of the -ballast is controlled from the forward gondola and can be released speedily. Some large airships have -battled safely through lengthy periods of stormy weather. On one occasion, the British R 33 broke away from her mooring mast, leaving her nose at the mooring- In this damaged condition she battled against a strong gale for some two days and eventually got safe home again. Mr. Preston was not serving on the R 33 at that time, but while he was a member of the crew, the airship was more or less lost for a couple of days after she had set out from Howdeu in Yorkshire, for Albert, in France. A thick blanketing of clouds made accurate navigation impossible, but the airship, after running well south of Paris, eventually returned to her depot undamaged, though she was buffeted by a gale from the west on her homeward run.

Although many notable voyages have been made by airships, there is also a long list of disasters to these giant craft. Rough contact with either land or water speedily reduces any rigid airship to a heap- of junk. Mr. Preston observed that in such a disaster as befel the Akron, the collapsing fabric would terribly hamper men who otherwise might have found means of keeping afloat. Nets carried inside the structure to prevent the gas containers thrusting the framework out of shape would also be a deadly danger to men struggling in the water under the collapsed fabric of an airship.