Page:NYT - Fatal fall of Wright airship - transcription.djvu/9

 Lahm Makes Investigation. As soon as the injured man had ben removed from the field and the crowd had been dispersed, Lieut. Lahm of the Signal Corps galloped back to the wrecked aeroplane. He took measurements of the distance from the broken propeller blades to the spot where the car lay crumpled, and compiled a list of names of witnesses to the accident. Because of the fact that the aeroplane had not yet passed into the hands of the War Department there may be no official inquiry into the accident, but one will be made in the cause of science. An examination of the wrecked machine disclosed how the two men received many of their injuries. The interior of the aeroplane, the space between the two great horizontal planes where the seat, engine, and gearing are carried, was a mass of twisted wires. Wright and the army officer were held in by these wires, and even if the force of the descent could have been broken, it is not likely that they could have disengaged themselves to have jumped. The cause of the fatal accident is believed to lie with the new propellers being unable to meet the strain placed upon them. The blades were put on only yesterday, replacing those with which Wright has made his world records. The change was made so that the aviator might determine just to what cause was due his loss in revolutions, a condition that had been bothering him last week. The new blades were sent from the workshop in Toledo, and had not had a tryout except in the usual tests when the machine was anchored. They appeared under these conditions to be safe and without flaws. The new propellers measured 9 feet from tip to tip; whereas the discarded ones were six inches shorter.