SAFETY IN FLYING.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17803, 30 August 1929, Page 2

SAFETY IN FLYING.

AIR MINISTRY’S REPORT.

RECENT CHANNEL TRAGEDY.

LONDON, July 19

The Air Ministry report of the Inquiry conducted by Sir Arthur Colefax into the disaster to the Imperial Airways liner the City of Ottawa, which was forced to descend into the English Channel on June 1”, with the result that seven passengers lost their lives, was issued on Monday night. The chief findings are as follows: — “The primary cause of the accident was the fracture under fatigue of studs In the front big end bearing of the starboard engine. This mishap to the starboard engine was of a type which is unavoidable. So far as human foresight and knowledge permitted, everything possible was done to make these studs suitable in every way for their purpose. “It would have been more satisfactorv had Imperial Airways, Limited, required pilots of passenger-carrying aircraft unable, should one engine fail, to maintain height with full load, to refer to Croydon and obtain sanction for a departure from the Channelcrossing regulations of the company The safety of the public would appear to demand that any aircraft used in public transport, carrying passengers between Great Britain and places abroad, which is not specially designed to land safely on water and which has a single engine or which does not possess such reserve of power as to make it possible for it to maintain height if one engine falls, should only start the Channel crossing at such height that reaching land on the other side will be a matter of reasonable certainty. The Lifebelts. “The passengers were not properly instructed how to use the lifebelts. The leaflets containing this information were not available, and no sufficient instructions were given otherwise. These matters are not within the scope of the pilot’s duties. “Two matters relating to the lifebelts call for consideration. Whether a lifebelt of sufficient buoyancy but not too large to make it undesirable for the wearer to inflate in while still in the cabin cannot be. devised, and a'so whether some simpler means should not be designed for releasing Ihe compressed air to inflate the belt if the present one continues to be provided. There Is no' evidence whim would warrant the conclusion that any life was lost by reason of a belt not being in proper order to become of its design or by reason of the insufficiency of the instruction how to use the belt which the passengers received. “Unless and until development of design makes il unnecessary, It should he a condition of every certificate of airworthiness issued or renewed by the Air Ministry of Great Britain on or after July 1, 1930, in respect of any aircraft not specially designed to land safely on water which, when it 3 engine or one of its engines tails, is unable to maintain height with full load, that the aircraft the subject of such certificate or renewal be not used in public transport for carrying passengers between Great Britain anc. places abroad. “It is clear that the essential desideratum In lids respect is the provision of sufficient reserve of engine power in the event of one engine failing, and is not necessarily the provision of three or any other specific number of engines."

Landing on Water. Discussing the fracture of the studs the report adds: “I am definitely of the opinion that nothing that human foresight could have done in providing against this primary cause of the starboard engine becoming relatively useless was omitted, either on the part of Messrs D. Napier and Son, Limited, or on the part of Imperial Airways, Limited, or their personnel. It is a case similar to many with which all who have to do with machinery arc familiar, the metal of some part becoming fatigued for some reason which remains, an unsolved mystery. Fixed Seats Question. “Major Cooper, one of the expert witnesses, gave it as his opinion that had the seats been rigidly fixed everybody would probably have escaped. He thought it was not open to doubt that when the machine struck the water the passengers' on their scats were hurled forward in a heap against the front of the cabin. The evidence given by the technical adviser to Imperial Airways, Limited, as to the means by which the seats were fixed to the floor, satisfied me that it would be wrong to regard these matters as established. I should add that Imperial Airways, Limited, are making experiments with the view of improving, if possible, the method of fixing the seats. “It has been said that ■ the pilot should have opened out the port engine so that the r.p.m. were, saj, 2200—i.0.. some 200 above the normal cruising speed. Further, it has been said that had he done so he would have reacnea iand. In my judgment the evidence taken as a whole justifies Ihe opinion which I have reached, that the, pilot acted prudently in not taking the risks involved in so doing. Further I am not satisfied that had lie done so he wouiu have reached land.”