Details of Air Crash

in N. Guinea

From Our Brisbane Correspondent THIS is the full story of the Dragon Rapide crash between Lae and Bulolo, on July 15, reported in Aug ust “PIM ’. It differs somewhat from that account and is told bv Mrs. Doris Booth who recently arrived in Brisbane from New Guinea.

For 21 hours, suffering frightful bruises and severe fractures and abrasions, the passengers, Mr. and Mrs. O. P. Blanden, were forced to stay in the plane, perched on top of a 120 foot tree. They could feel the plane slowly slipping off, but could do nothing about it.

The pilot was thrown through the pers pex in the nose of the plane, and landed in a ravine 150 ft. below. He got up, with only a small bone broken in the base of his spine, and walked away to seek help.

Mr. and Mrs, Blanden were knocked un conscious when the plane hit the tree.

When they regained consciousness, they attracted the attention of natives, who immediately went off and brought help from a Government station, three miles away. Two men from the station climbed up the tree into the plane. After inject ing morphia into the two injured pas sengers, they sat up all night with them.

The next morning, two men from the goldfields, including a doctor, came to the rescue. They tied the plane to the tree, then lowered Mr. and Mrs. Blanden diown in wire baskets.

The day after the Blandens were res cued, the tree, with the plane still at tached, collapsed.

Mrs. Blanden’s arm was broken in three places, and one ear nearly severed.

Mr. Blanden suffered an impacted fracture of the shoulder, fracture of the ankle, and severe injuries to his face.

Every bone of his face was broken, leav mg no piece larger than a thumb-nail intact. He is now undergoing, in Aus tralia, extensive plastic operations on his face.

M. Joseph Quesnot, newly elected Councillor of the Republic, left Tahiti early in August for Paris, where he will represent French Oceania in the national Parliament.