Perils of the Air,
In the air the New Year has opened in the same disastrous fashion as the Old Year closed. It is true that at this season, when either fog or ice or bad visibility, are daily occurrences an increase in the number of accidents to passenger-planes might appear natural. But to admit that is to admit that the promise of immunity from die effects of the weather brought about by the war-time development of directional equipment was at least premature. If, as appears probable, this immunity is only partial, then it is time that the fact and its consequences are accepted and all flying strictly controlled during bad weather conditions. Flying at best is still a hazardous form of transport and it is folly to rely blindly on a form of pro- tection wLich has over and over again proved its inadequacy. It is with this doubt in mind that one must consider the announce- ment of a new corporation, famed jointly by the three existing British air corporations, to operate radio aids to navigation through- out the world. No one is in any doubt about the need for improving navigational devices, but with so many accidents occurring at fields at which up-to-date directional apparatus is already installed no one will be inclined to think that the whole solution of the problem lies here. Something may be learned from the searching enquiries which it is to be assumed will be made into the voyage of the Africa- bound Dakota which came back and crashed in Kent on Saturday after being warned successively off the landing-grounds at Bordeaux, Le Bourget and Havre. The problem, of course, is not purely a British one. In America equally there is growing concern at the alarming air-fatality figures as well there may be.
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