AKRON DISASTER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 7

AKRON DISASTER

SURVIVORS' REPORTS SEVERE GUST OF WIND SHIP’S GIRDERS BUCKLED ’Ey Telegraph —Press Association—Copvrlf**. WASHINGTON, April 6. A sudden and very sharp gust o£ wind, more severe than any he had ever experienced, was given by Lieu-tenant-Commander Wiley, of (he Akron, on Thursday in his official report to tho Navy Department as the apparent cause of the disaster. In his statement to the Secretary (Mr. Swanson), in which the two other survivors collaborated, Lieut.-Comman-der Wiley said that the gust struck the ship as it was lighting the storm off the New Jersey coast at 12.30 a.m. on Tuesday. “I noted immediately that tho lower rudder control ropo had carried away, and reported it to tho captain.’ 1 Mr. Deal, boatswain’s mate, reported that as he lay in his bunk on the right side of the ship ho saw two girders above the corridor of the ship bend and buckle, and noted as ho ran forward that the control lines in the vicin. ity of the ship appeared slack but not broken. It is difficult to synchronise accurately these observations in the control car, but apparently the damage to the girders occurred after the severe gust struck the ship and after the ship had begun its last descent, practically out of control, and which was terminated by the ship striking the water with consequent major structural damage. Lieut.-Commander Wiley said that he was submerged in the c.ontrol ear by water coming through the window and was then carried out of the window. He sought to reach tho airship by swimming, as it was silhouetted in the lightning flashes. Tho airship, however, was drifting away rapidly. “At about 500 yards I could sec the ship entirely on the water, broken in two or three places, and submerged to about one-third of her diameter with the bow for a length of about 200 feet inclined into the air at an angle of about 30 degrees. I saw several men in the water and heard their cries. None were close to me.” Lieut.-Commander Wiley clung to a board and was hauled aboard the Phoebus after being in the water from thirty minutes to an hour.