COMET AIRLINER SERVICES
SUSPENDED
______________________________
TECHNICAL EXAMINATION ORDERED BY B.O.A.C.
All Comet jet airliner services of the British
Overseas Airways
Corporation have been temporarily suspended. Announcing this
decision, which was
taken voluntarily, the corporation said last night that their action
had been taken to
enable a thorough technical examination of every airliner in
their Comet fleet to be
carried out.
The two French companies owning Comets have also decided not to
fly them “for a
few days,” but the Royal Canadian Air Force has decided not to
ground its two
Comets.
No more bodies of victims of the Comet airline crash near Elba on
Sunday had been
recovered last night.
CORPORATION’S STATEMENT
_______________
TEMPORARY ACTION
By Our Aeronautical Correspondent
British Overseas Airways Corporation announced last night their
intention to suspend
temporarily their Comet jet airliner services from midnight onwards,
“to enable a
minute and unhurried technical examination” of every aircraft in their
Comet fleet to
be carried out.
A statement from the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation
said that the Minister
had informed the Canadian and French Governments of this decision, “so
that such an
action may be taken as is considered necessary in relation to the
Comets operating in
Canada and France.”
The B.O.A.C. statement was as follows:-
British Overseas Airways Corporation announce that as a measure
of prudence their
normal Comet passenger services are being temporarily suspended, to
enable a minute and
unhurried technical examination of every aircraft in their Comet fleet
to be carried out
at their maintenance headquarters at London Airport.
This examination will be conducted in closest collaboration with
the de Havilland
aircraft and engine companies (makers of the Comet aircraft and the
Ghost engine) and with
the Air Registration Board. The Minister of Transport and Civil
Aviation has been
consulted and concurs with this decision of the corporation. No Comet
passenger service
will operate after midnight, G.M.T., tonight. Notification of the
resumption of services
will be published by the corporation.
VOLUNTARY DECISION
A B.O.A.C. spokesman emphasised that the decision to withdraw the Comets from service temporarily had been taken voluntarily by the corporation. The airliners had not been “grounded,” which would imply an order to withdraw them. The B.O.A.C. decision was taken after a day of conferences at London Airport and in London. After speaking on the telephone to corporation representatives in Rome Sir Miles Thomas, the chairman, presided over discussion at London Airport attended by Sir Victor Tait, B.O.A.C. Operations Director; Mr R E Bishop, chief designer and a director of de Havilland Aircraft Company, who headed the design team responsible for the Comet; Mr R E Hardingham, chief executive of the Air Registration Board, the body responsible for the airworthiness requirements for British civil aircraft; Captain M J R Alderson, manager of the B.O.A.C. Comet fleet; Captain G S Brown, head of the corporation’s accidents investigation department; and Captain J Johnson, who was in command of B.O.A.C. Argonaut airliner which was in radio communication with the Comet G-ALYP over Elba while both were flying from Rome to London on Sunday morning.
MEETING WITH MINISTER
Later in the day, Sir Miles Thomas was in conference with Mr
Lennox-Boyd, the Minister
of Transport and Civil Aviation, who was accompanied by Sir
Frederick Handley Page,
a council member and one of the vice-chairman of the Air Registration
Board, Sir
Gilmour Jenkins, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Transport and
Civil Aviation, and
Sir George Cribbett, Deputy Secretary. After this meeting , Sir
Miles Thomas had a
talk with Professor A A Hall, director of the Royal Aircraft
Establishment at
Farnborough, Hampshire, where a detailed technical examination is being
made of the
wreckage of the B.O.A.C. Comet which during crashed during an
unusually severe storm
on May 2, 1953, a few minutes after taking off from Dum Dum airfield,
Calcutta, on a
flight from Singapore to London. All 43 occupants of the airliner
were killed.
In accordance with normal procedure, the inquiry into the
accident to the
Comet G-ALYP, which was lost with 29 passengers and a crew of six on
board, will be
conducted by the Italian Government, from whose territory the aircraft
had last taken off.
Several British officials, who had flown out to Rome on
Sunday night were
assisting in the preliminary inquiries yesterday. They are Mr T R
Nelson, a Ministry of
Transport and Civil Aviation senior inspector; Mr B Morris, a
senior investigating
officer of the Ministry’s accidents investigation branch; Mr B J
Folliard, of
B.O.A.C.’s accident investigation branch; Dr A S R Peffers,
deputy
director of the corporation’s medical service; Mr H A
Hornblow, B.O.A.C.
traffic inspector, and Mr P J Detmold, one of de Havilland Aircraft
Company’s field
service engineers.
PREPARING PROGRAMME
It is understood that Sir Miles Thomas and Sir Geoffrey de
Havilland, head of the
aircraft and engine companies bearing his name, will both take an
active part in the
technical examination of the Comets. The manufacturers began to work
out an examination
schedule with B.O.A.C. yesterday.
All the B.O.A.C. Comets in active service were due to reach their
destinations
before midnight, the last one being due at Singapore at 11 p.m.
G.M.T. Another
landed at Tokyo at 5.25 a.m. yesterday, and the third at Johannesburg
at 1.47 p.m.
Carrying no loads, except perhaps small amounts of mail, these
aircraft will be
flown back to London Airport for their technical examinations.
A number of other airliners have been withdrawn from service
temporarily or
grounded at various times by the British airline
corporations. B.O.A.C.
aircraft involved were: Solent flying-boats, withdrawn June, 1948,
reintroduced October,
1948 (modifications to wingtip floats): Argonauts, grounded September,
1949, reintroduced
October, 1949, (minor motor modification): Constellations grounded
July, 1946,
reintroduced September, 1946, (modifications to electrical
wiring): Stratocruisers,
withdrawn January, 1953, reintroduced some days late
(engines seizing up owing
to oiling troubles).
EARLIER PRECAUTIONS
In May, 1953, British European Airways temporarily withdrew their
Viking airliners,
which had exceeded 9,000 hours’ flying, for inspection because of
modifications
required for these aircraft flying under tropical conditions. In
the following month
B.E.A. announced that 17 out of the fleet of 41 Vikings had
been withdrawn
from service temporarily for replacement of wing spar fittings as
a precautionary
measure. In 1949, after two Tudor IV airliners had disappeared in
mysterious
circumstances during flights over the Atlantic. British South
American Airways
(now amalgamated with B.O.A.C.) suspended this aircraft from
service pending an
investigation of each individual aircraft, and the Minister of
Civil Aviation
ordered their grounding “as a measure of prudence.”
Apart from B.O.A.C. operators of Comets I and IA are Air
France, the French
U.A.T. company, and the Royal Canadian Air Force. B.O.A.C. have
been using them on
services between the United Kingdom and Johannesburg, Tokyo, Singapore
and Colombo.
To date these airliners have accumulated over 30,000 hours flying.
ITALIAN INQUIRY OPENED
________________
NO MORE BODIES FOUND
From Our Own Correspondent Rome, Jan.11
The official investigation, conducted by General
Coppi, into
yesterday’s Comet airliner disaster near Elba, opened to-day with a
preliminary
discussions in Rome between Italian officials and the British experts
from the Ministry of
Civil Aviation, the B.O.A.C. and de Havillands, who arrived here by air
early to-day.
The Italian and British investigators subsequently left for Porto
Ferraio, the chief
town of Elba, to continue inquiries near the scene of the disaster,
which occurred about
10 miles south of the island. The 15 bodies which have been
recovered are in the
chapel of the cemetery of the village of Porto Azzurro, the fishing
village nearest to the
scene of the accident, where they were landed last night. The
villagers are reported
to have piled flowers around the bodies.
In addition to the many aviation officials, both Italian and
British , to reach the
Island to-day. Mr Murphy, the British vice-consul in Florence, is in
Elba to review any
consular questions that may arise. Identification of the bodies
is not likely to
prove difficult when contact has been made with the relatives. Italian
sources report that
the bodies are of seven men, five women, and three children. They
include two children
about nine or ten years old; two girls of about 17, apparently sisters;
an oriental woman
of about 25; a girl about 20; a child of eight; a man aged 35 to 40:
and probably the
airliner’s stewardess.
DOCTORS OPINION
In spite of further search to-day by mine-sweepers and
other vessels, in a
fairly rough sea, no further bodies are yet reported to have been
found, though such items
as over-night travelling bags and small pieces of wreckage were
still being
recovered from the sea. The local doctor at Porto Ferraio has given his
opinion that all
those whose bodies have been found must have been dead before the
aircraft crashed.
There seems general agreement among witnesses that the
aircraft broke up in
the air before crashing into the sea. The British Ambassador in
Rome, Sir Ashley
Clarke, has sent a message to the Italian Ministry of civilian
officials for their
“magnificent services” after the crash.
REVISED LIST OF PASSENGERS
____________________
SIX CHILDREN INCLUDED
A list of 29 passengers on board the Comet airliner
which crashed into the
sea south of Elba on Sunday was issued by B.O.A.C. in London yesterday.
It includes the
names of six children. The aircraft carried a crew of six. Two of
the passengers
were Americans, three inhabitants of Bahrain, and one of a Syrian
from Damascus.
Three of the passengers were B.O.A.C. staff, six were relatives of
B.O.A.C. staff and one
was a B.E.A. captain. The list is:-
JOINED AT SINGAPORE - Mr J P Hill (B.O.A.C. staff), of Singapore; Mr J
Steel, of George Wimpey and Co., of London.
JOINED AT BANGKOK - Mr F J Greenhouse, of Horley, Surrey; Master R
Sawyer-Snelling (14),
son of B.O.A.C. staff , of Bangkok; Captain R V Wolfson (B.O.A.C.
staff) of
Bishop’s Stortford, Herts.
JOINED AT RANGOON - Mr Chester Wilmot, of Aylesbury.
JOINED AT KARACHI - Mrs Dorothy Baker. of Wilmette, Illinios, United
States; Mr H E
Schuchmann (American), of the Macmillan Company of New York.
JOINED AT BAHRAIN - Mr Bernard Butler, of Blidworth Notts: Miss N
Khedouri (15) and
Miss R Khedouri (13) of Bahrain: Mr J Bunyan, Mrs A Bunyan, and
child, of Stirling;
Mr J B Crilly (B.O.A.C. staff) and Brenda Crilly, child, of Bahrain;
Miss L Yateen (17),
of Bahrain;
JOINED AT BEIRUT - Mrs K E Geldard, wife of B.O.A.C. staff, Miss G
Geldard, and Master
Geldard, of Beirut; Mr S Naamin, of Damascus; Mrs E S MacLachlan, wife
of B.O.A.C. staff,
of Cairo; Mr J Y Ramsden, of Shell Petroleum Company, Beirut.
JOINED AT ROME - Captain C A Livingstone (B.E.A. captain), of Stirling.
B.O.A.C. state that the home addresses of five other passengers are not
known, and it has
not yet been possible to contact the next-of-kin. These were: A Crisp,
Miss E Fairbrother,
a passenger named Israel, Mr D Leaver, and Mr T S H Moore.
CANADA NOT TO GROUND COMETS
OTTAWA. Jan. 11 - A spokesman of the Royal Canadian Air
Force, which has
two Comets in Canada, said today that the B.O.A.C. notification of the
temporary
suspension of Comet services did not indicate that continued operation
of the Comets was
unsafe, and pending the receipt of information on the cause of the
crash there was no
reason to ground the Comets, here.
The R.C.A.F. Comets are used chiefly to exercise Canada’s air
defence
system. They fly deep into the Artic or out over the Atlantic,
returning at unannounced
times and places to give practice to radar crews. - Reuter
FRENCH DECISION
PARIS, Jan, 11 - The two French air companies owning Comets to-night decided to suspend their Comet services “for a few days.” - Reuter
INSURANCE IN LONDON MARKET
________________
HULL VALUED AT £500,000
The Comet was almost entirely insured in the
London market, the
British Insurance Association states. The hull insurance alone totals
£500,000 - which
figure, according to City reports, is well spread among the companies
and Lloyd’s.
There will be additional claims under insurance on the cargo and
under accident and
life insurance policies on passengers and crew. The amount of
cargo insurance
involved is expected to be made known in London soon.
_____________________
AIRMAIL IN COMET
The Postmaster-General has been advised that letters, postcards, printed papers, and air parcels, including forces mail, from Malaya, North Borneo, Brunei and Sarawak, posted on January 7 and 8, were carried in the Comet. Mails loaded at Bangkok, Rangoon, Karachi, Bahrain, and Beirut may also be involved.
From THE TIMES
(London) 12th
January 1954
