Sabotage?

A handy explanation for inexplicable disaster is sabotage. It was charged but never proved in the Morro Castle, Havana and Mohawk shipwrecks./- Three years ago it caused a Congressional inquiry into the U. S. S. Akron's construction. Last week the cry was raised twice more:

P:In Washington the House Patents Committee heard Roy W. Knabenshue, pioneer airshipman, allege that acid had been poured on the late great Macon's girders and guy-wires by the Filipino mess-boy who lost his life in the airship crash. Though Commander Wiley pooh-poohed the suggestion, high Navy officials admitted sabotage was a "distinct possibility."

P:Fortnight ago Wiley Post set out from Los Angeles in the Winnie Mae on what was to be a 400-m.p.h. 7-hr. nonstop flight to New York in the substratosphere. An hour later an overheated engine forced him down in the desert some 100 mi. from Los Angeles. Last week, his eye blazing with indignation, Pilot Post told newshawks two pounds of metal filings, emery dust and other abrasive foreign matter had been found in his engine, had ostensibly been put there by an ill-wisher.

/-Dismissing the sabotage theory, the U. S. Bureau of Navigation & Steamboat Inspection last week blamed the Morro Castle disaster on negligence, the Mohawk sinking on broken steering gear and consequent misunderstanding of bridge signals.

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