A couple of days ago, while taking my usual look though the “On this day” section of Wikipedia, I noticed an article about an air crash in the United States in October 1933 which was claimed to be the first proven act of aerial sabotage by means of a bomb on board. As you can imagine it piqued my interest, in no small part because I’d never heard of it. This is itself is not unusual.
I was fascinated because the aircraft involved was a sleek, modern-looking Boeing 247. I was also interested because, having read Ralph Barker’s 1966 Great Mysteries of the Air as a boy, I remembered a chapter entitled “The World of Albert Voss.” It described an incident of suspected sabotage which brought down one one of those magnificent old Imperial Airways airliners somewhere in Europe, resulting in the deaths of all the passengers and crew. Surely that must have been earlier than the American incident? On looking everything up today, I found that the European accident was earlier, but only by a few months. Both incidents took place in 1933, both incidents involved the deliberate destruction of a commercial airliner. In only one case was the cause positively attributed to an explosive device placed on the aircraft, and in only one case was an individual passenger suspected (or accused) of being the perpetrator.
United Air Lines Trip 23 – NC13304
Trip 23 was a transcontinental flight from Newark, NJ to Oakland, CA using a Boeing 247D with the US Civil Registration NC13304. The aircraft had left Cleveland, OH and was heading for Chicago, IL at at altitude of 1500 feet when it crashed near Chesterton, Indiana on the evening of October 10th 1933. Eyewitnesses apparently heard an explosion and saw the aircraft crashing in flames. There were no survivors among the three crew and four passengers aboard.
Accident investigators very quickly found evidence that an explosive device had been placed on board. The tail section of the aircraft was found a mile from the rest of the wreckage, and the bodies of two passengers were also found nearby. Where the tail had separated from rest of the fuselage, it was noted that the edges of the metal had been turned outwards. United Air Lines representatives informed the FBI that it was not possible for the Boeing to have simply broken in two in the ideal flying conditions at that time. The An FBI investigator quoted in the New York Times said he was convinced that “the tragedy resulted from an explosion somewhere in the region of the baggage compartment.” The local Coroner’s office and the Crime Detection Laboratory at Northwestern University concluded that a bomb had been placed on board, and that nitroglycerin was the likely explosive.
The FBI released a large number of documents related to the investigation (in the form of one massive PDF) in 2017. The 324 page PDF is a fascinating glimpse into the past, partly reflecting a few of the prevailing attitudes of the time – was another employee of United Air Lines a “vicious agitator”? Political agitation was a sensitive topic in the USA in the early 30s. The FBI documents emphasize that “both of the pilots [of NC13304] had refused to join the movement”) Was there a connection between the recent transportation of two federal prisoners by United Air Lines and the explosion? One of the documents is a memorandum for J. Edgar Hoover with a handwritten footnote note initialed by Hoover himself.
Despite the evidence of an explosive device on the aircraft, no suspect has ever been identified. The case has never been solved.
Imperial Airways – G-AACI City of Liverpool
A few months earlier, on March 28th 1933, a British Airliner en route from Cologne to London via Brussels crashed near the Belgian city of Diksmuide following an onboard fire. All 15 people on board (12 passengers and three crew) were killed. For a little while the crash was the worst aviation disaster in British history.
The aircraft involved was an Armstrong-Whitworth Argosy II registered G-AACI which had been built in 1928 and named City of Liverpool by Imperial Airways. The City of Liverpool had left Haren (also known later as Brussels – Evere) in the early afternoon of March 28th 1933 en route for Croydon. While cruising at around 4000 feet and 95 knots an intense fire broke out in the tail section of the aircraft. The pilots may have attempted an emergency landing near Diksmuide, but the aircraft stalled at 200 feet at which point the tail of the aircraft separated from the rest of the fuselage and both sections crashed to the ground. All on board were killed. A male passenger seemingly jumped from the aircraft just before the crash and was also killed. He was later identified as Albert Voss, a German emigre who practiced as a dentist in the Manchester area.
Although an investigation found that the fire had started at the the rear of the aircraft, in either the lavatory or the luggage area, it proved impossible to isolate a specific cause.
Suspicion began to center around Albert Voss. Time Magazine reported that, at Voss’ inquest in Salford (Manchester), a lawyer representing Voss’ estranged younger brother (also named Albert) accused the elder Voss of being responsible for the crash. The dentist’s business trips to the continent to buy anesthetics were a cover for his involvement in drug trafficking, and that this had not gone unnoticed by law enforcement agencies. The younger Voss alleged his brother had a plan to shake off the authorities by destroying the aircraft and leaving the scene of the crime, hoping that no-one would notice a missing body in the confusion. Obviously the circumstances of City of Liverpool’s crash made it impossible to leave the aircraft at a lower or safer altitude. In an interesting an gruesome twist, the Time magazine article also stated that Voss was traveling with his partner L.O. Dearden (another dentist) and his 16 year old niece Lottie. Since he was sure he would be arrested in London, Voss abandoned his partner and niece and took his chances by leaving the aircraft.
One can always rely on the Australian press for its no-holds-barred reporting. The Sydney Morning Herald of 5 April 1933 said that the Salford Coroner’s “decision to postpone the funeral of Mr, Albert Voss, one of the victims of tho air disaster, was taken after Scotland Yard had communicated with the Salford police In consequence of information received from Imperial Airways, Ltd.”
The Herald continues: “The fire on the air liner”, the coroner stated, “broke out near where Mr. Voss sat, and he must have flung himself from the aeroplane immediately. … The fingers of Mr. Voss’ left hand were badly burned, but the right hand was only slightly burned. There is some question whether this ls consistent with the possibility that he held some inflammable or explosive material in his hands. There is a suggestion that he committed suicide, and tried to make his death look like an accident, sacrificing the air liner and all aboard. It is a terrible thought, especially as his own niece was one of the passengers. Mr. Voss was insured for £500 for the flight, besides holding other policies. Voss was undoubtedly financially embarrassed, and was wanted by the police for alleged embezzlement In Germany. He tried to commit suicide in October [1932] by taking a very large quantity of aspirin. It Is now questioned whether the school-girl victim of the disaster, hitherto described as a niece of Mr. Voss, is any relation to him. Her identity ls being investigated.”
The aviation correspondent of the “Dally Telegraph” says: (according to the Herald) “The fire apparently started either in the lavatory, which was aft of the passengers’ cabin, or In the luggage compartment, aft of the lavatory. Mr. Voss’ clothes and body bore scarcely a trace of fire. His overcoat was rolled under his arm. He appears to have stepped out of the aeroplane voluntarily.”
I am fascinated to read that while the Salford coroner directed the jury to return a verdict of accidental death, the jury in fact returned an open verdict.
