The City of Liverpool Aeroplane Crashes, Killing 15

In a field near Eesen, Belgium, fortnight ago a peasant looked up from his spring radishes to see the Imperial Airways liner City of Liverpool suddenly burst into flames and crash like a meteor in a field, twelve passengers and the crew of three dying instantly (TIME, April 3).

One of the passengers was a Dr. Albert Voss, dentist, of Manchester. At a coroner's inquest into his death last week, the story of the disaster became stranger than ever. The body of Dr. Voss was picked up nearly two miles from the wreckage of the plane. It was not burned. Evidence seemed to show that Dr. Voss jumped from the plane. Though his 16-year-old niece Lottie was one of the killed passengers, there was a possibility that he might have set the plane afire.

The City of Liverpool was an Armstrong Whitworth Argosy II aeroplane flown by British airline Imperial Airways that crashed on 28 March 1933 near Dixmude, northern Belgium after an onboard fire. At the time it was the deadliest accident in the history of British civil aviation. It has been suggested that this was the first airliner ever lost to sabotage, and in the immediate aftermath suspicion centred on one passenger, Dr. Albert Voss, who seemingly jumped from the plane before it crashed.

A fire, possibly started by a passenger attempting to commit suicide, caused the plane to crash killing all 15 aboard. This is thought to be the first act of sabotage on a commercial airliner.