GREATEST AIR DISASTER SO FAR KNOWN

Wanganui Chronicle, 5 October 1946, Page 5

GREATEST AIR DISASTER SO FAR KNOWN

THIRTY-NINE PEOPLE KILLED IN NEWFOUNDLAND CRASH

Reed. 9 p.m. New York, Oct. 3. What is believed to be the “greatest air disaster ever” occurred when an Overseas Airways airliner, a DC4 Skymaster, with 31 passengers and a crew of eight, crashed into a hillside, 1011 feet from the summit, 10 miles from Harmon, which is 200 miles west of Gander, Newfoundland.

All on board were killed, including women and children

The crash occurred at 4.35 a.m., soon after taking off from an air•eld.

The plane apparently exploded after the crash because only a small piece of wreckage is visible from the air.

The Coastguard Service dispatched a rescue plane, a he’copter, and para-troopers to the scene of the disaster, although the possibility of there being tiny survivors is considered remote.

The crashed plane was en route from New York to Berlin, and the 31 passengers included three children, aged four years, 20 months and six months respectively. The first two belonged to one family travelling with the mother to Amsterdam.

The remainder of the passengers were bound for Frankfort and Berlin.

Most of the women passengers were going to join their servicemen husbands.

The plane would normally have landed at Gander to refuel, but that airport was closed by rain and fog.

Observers from the air reported that the wreckage burned for four hours.

On September 18 a Belgian-owned airliner, a dC4, carrying 37 passengers and a crew of seven, was reported overdue at New York from Europe, and next day was repor ZT to have crashed in rough country 22 miles south-west of Gander. There*were 18 survivors, all of whom were rescued by helicopter.