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Airmen Soaring Over Sea [[ 1 image ]] Maurice Rossi, left, and Paul Codos, French flyers who are roaring over the Atlantic on a flight from Paris to Buenos Aires. [A. P. photo] Day Morning Relate Macon's Rip Witnesses Tell of Crumpling Fin "Went to pieces" Like Paper Sack, Leaving Some of Framework Exposed BY FLOYD J. HEALY "Times" Staff Correspondent SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 16. (Exclusive)-Eye witnesses to the death throes of the dirigible Mason-two lighthouse tenders at Point Sur and two sailors of the U.S.S. Houston-today told the naval court trying to find the cause of the disaster, that at least part of the huge bag's stern came apart. They were not sure whether the fin sheered or the fabric tore first, but to one of them at least, the disintegration of the Macon looked "like a paper sack flying apart." Members of the naval board of inquiry, meeting on the U.S.S. Tennessee, listened attentively to the stories of the two lighthouse tenders, Thomas Henderson and Harry R. Miller, to determine if these civilians saw anything which would support or weaken charges by member's of the Macon's crew that a weakness of structure or design was the basic cause of the accident which sent the Navy's sky pride to the bottom of the Pacific off Point Sur last Tuesday night. TOP FIN CRUMBLES Henderson told of watching the Macon as it moved northward about three miles off the Point, testifying: "The top fin appeared to go to pieces all of a sudden. It gave way at the leading edge and then seemed to go progressively, little by little, and right up over backwards. The ship then went up and circled to the left and headed south and disappeared in the clouds. We lost sight of her but we could follow her course by the splashing of objects dropped overboard." "Do you believe," inquired Lieutenant-Commander Herbert V. Wiley, master of the Macon, "the fin disintegrated starting from the leading edge and then the framework carried away?" PART OF FRAME LEFT "I would not like to say," Henderson replied. "I would not like to say the framework carried away. It looked like a torn-up newspaper. Fragments could be seen falling." "Was there a portion of the framework left?" asked Admiral Murfin of the board. "I know there was some framework there." Miller, Henderson's assistant, testified to the same effect, adding: "It looked to me like a paper sack flying apart." Charles Wilkie, signalman on the Houston, said he first saw the Macon from the cruiser's signal bridge at a distance of about ten miles. The dirigible was dropping ballast, he testified, with her nose up and smoke pouring from the aft motors. SPLASHES IN WATER "The upper fin seemed to be gone back to the rudders," he said, "and there was a dark patch on the port [[ripped]] some one had spilled ink This may have been a or the fin flopped on the coming noticed ballast [[ripped]] FRENCHMEN OVER OCEAN ON LONG HOP Codos and Rossi Head West for South America on 6875-Mile Journey ST. LOUIS (Senegal, West Africa) Feb. 17. (Sunday.) (U.P.)The French fliers Codos and Rossi reported at 5:30 a.m. G.M.T. (9:30 p.m. P.S.T. Saturday,) that their position was 13 deg. north, 25 deg. west, approximately seventy-five miles west of the Cape Verde Islands. PORT ETIENNE (Rio De Oro, West Africa) Feb. 17. (Sunday) (AP) The airplane Joseph Lebrix, which two Frenchmen are flying to South America, for a distance record, passed over Port Etienne at 12:13 a.m. today (4:13 p.m. Saturday, Pacific standard time,) and headed out over the Atlantic. The Frenchmen took off today from Istres, France, at 6:36 a.m., in the plane in which they flew from New York to Syria in 1933. Codos and Rossi, on the basis of their hourly radio bulletins, were averaging about 105 miles an hour. Their goal was Buenos Aires, 6875 miles away. Officials at Le Bourget Field believed they might complete the crossing in sixty-five hours.
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