A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE fact that fire should have broken out in two British air liners within a week—in the one case with disastrous results, in the other not—is on the face of it alarming. But it is a case of coincidence, not connexion, for the causes of the two accidents appear to have been quite different. The aeroplane that was just brought to earth in time at Luxeuil, In France, before any passenger had been burned, caught `fire through a petrol leak. In the machine in which Mr. Anthony Crossley, M.P., and four others perished on Tues- day the cause was pretty certainly lightning, since the fire broke out in the radio-room. For a machine to start a leak after taking off is extremely rare, but no one can guarantee that it will never happen to any machine again, nor can anyone that lightning will never again bring an aero- plane down in flames ; the properties of what is known, I believe, as static electricity in the air are still under investi- gation by scientists, and are by no means fully understood yet. But an American has calculated that so far as that country is concerned a man would fly on an average 12,000,000 miles before finding himself in a machine in- volved in a fatal accident (not necessarily fatal to him). It Is probably much the same here. * *
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