Fiji Air ways Drover on Ree[?]

A Fiji Airways Drover aircraft, flying between Savusavu and Nausori, on August 28, made a forced landing on a coral reef about four miles off Bau, on S-E Viti LeVu. Neither the pilot nor the seven passengers were injured.

FEW details of the accident have been officially released. Captain Fred Ladd made a remarkable landing, and after moving along the reef for a short distance, the wheels of the plane appeared to encounter a bump or a hole in the coral. The result was a damaged propeller.

Works Department equipment was sent from Suva early the next day, and the Drover was brought ashore after being partly submerged by the sea on the reef. It was im mediately removed to Nausori Air port.

A formal inquiry will be held.

Pending findings, all that can be done is to comment on the pilot’s skill in getting the Drover down in what, to the uninitiated, seems to be an impossible landing-place.

On April 26, Captain Ladd was pilot of a Fiji Airways de Havilland Rapide which crashed and was burned when making a forced landing at Labasa. Everybody aboard escaped without serious injury, largely due to the swift action of Captain Ladd in getting the passengers out be fore the fire took charge.

The findings of the inquiry into the April crash have not yet been made public. Many local residents maintain that Fiji Airways is forced to do too much with the planes and equipment available. The Drover involved in the reef-landing is one of two second-hand planes bought after the loss of a Rapide at Labasa.

With the damage to the Drover it seems unlikely that Fiji Airways will be able to maintain indefinitely a Nadi Airport-Suva shuttle service

that will eliminate the angry com plaints of overseas travellers who un wittingly get caught and ex pensively delayed at the Nadi bottleneck on their way to Suva. (When TEAL changed over from Solent flying-boats to DC 6 land planes, all passeng ers between Suva and New Zealand had to go through Nadi, which is about 150 miles by road from the capital).

It will be surpris ing if there is not r e i n f o rcement of the local demand fo r an up-to-date bus service to cope with air passengers,

mails and freight between the ii ternational airport and Suva. . There is no night flying on Fi internal air services, and hold-ui are inevitable, at times. When, ; sometimes happens, there is i accommodation available at Na the alternatives for Suva-bound b nighted travellers is either a tr to Lautoka or a £lO taxi journey Suva. And that, as many people ha 1 pointed out, eliminates the saving ( tourist-class travel from New Zei land or Australia to Fiji — F\ Correspondent.