Pioneer Pilot,

Seven Passengers

Die In Crash

Civil aviation in the New Hebrides suffered a severe set back in October when a three engine Drover aircraft crashed

in rugged, mountainous, bush

country in the south of Tanna,

killing all eight people on board.

It was the Condominium’s first fatal plane crash.

THE plane, which belonged to Air Melanesia, was piloted by Mr.

Paul Burton, the pioneer pilot of internal commercial air services in the Condominium.

Three of the seven passengers on board were Europeans; the others were New Hebrideans, The Europeans were: Dr. Rouzard, a French Government medical officer; the Rev. Ross Blackwell, a Presby terian missionary from Melbourne, Victoria, who was stationed at White Sands, Tanna; and Mr. George Trigg, a British education officer on Tanna.

Dr. Rouzard’s widow was expecting a baby in November; while Mr. Trigg was to have been married in No vember to Miss Shirley Layton, of Gosford, NSW. Miss Layton, a Pres byterian teacher on Tanna, has been in the New Hebrides for about 4i years.

One of the four New Hebridean

passengers was a medical dresser called Louis, and one was a child.

Information about the two others had not come to hand when PIM went to press.

Started In 1960

Mr. Burton, who was married with one daughter, was the foundation pilot of New Hebrides Airways, which started the first commercial air service within the New Hebrides in 1960.

New Hebrides Airways was founded by Mr. Bob Paul, an Aus tralian planter on Tanna (see p. 17).

It combined with the French company Hebridair in June under the name of Air Melanesia for a trial period of six months.

Mr. Burton was highly popular and widely admired in the New Hebrides for his flying skill. He took his small aircraft up in all sorts of weather; landed and took off from airstrips that would have shocked pilots in more developed countries; and did it all with a minimum of navigational aids.

Before going to the New Hebrides, he piloted planes in outback Australia.

He was born in Canada 55 years ago, but went to Australia at the age of five.

Mr. Burton took off on his last fatal flight at about 11 a.m. on Fri day, October 21, bound from Lenakel, on the west coast of Tanna, to the small island of Futuna, about 65 miles due east.

Two minutes after take-off, he radioed that all was well. After that, nothing was heard from him.

Extensive Search

Aftes a radio message was received from Futuna that the plane had failed to arrive, a Sunderland flying-boat, a DC4 and an Aztec aircraft began an extensive search for it.

The Sunderland was called in from the Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Laucala Bay, Fiji. The DC4 was a French Navy plane from Noumea. And the Aztec was under charter to Air Melanesia from a rental company in New South Wales.

The three planes were on the fourth day of their search when wreckage of the ill-fated Drover was found by a party of searchers comb ing the mountainous interior of Tanna on foot. The wreckage was about three miles inland.

The loss of the Drover, which was insured, completely disorganised Air Melanesia’s schedules, as its two other regular aircraft—a Drover and a Domier—were both out of action at the time of the crash.

Paul Burton