AIR-INDIA PLANE CRASH December 21, 1950 All the 20 persons on board the Air-India Dakota missing since Wednesday last, were dead, a military search party reported to night, after examining the wreckage discovered this morning in the Denad reserve forest near Kil-Kotagiri, 40 miles north of Coimbatore. The party found the plane completely disintegrated and the bodies in decomposed state. The wreckage of the plane was found in a rocky desolate valley below Rangaswami Hill, eight miles from Kil-Kotagiri. Kil-Kotagiri is six miles north-east of Kotagiri and ten miles due north of Mettupalayam with an elevation of about 6,000 feet. The actual place where the plane had crashed was four miles from Kil-Kotagiri. The military party and medical men from Wellington had practically to crawl on hands and feet the last one and a half mile to reach the spot. Crew (all Indians):1. Capt. A.B. Wiseman; 2. Mr. B.N. Ayre (Copilot); 3. Mr. K.A. Shenoy (Radio officer); 4. Miss Staggs (Air Hostess). Mr.Andrew Browne Wisemen, the chief pilot, joined the Air-India service in 1947, and held the rank of junior captain. He was a flying officer with the Indian Air Force for three and a half years. |