Planes Down

P:Forced by a Caribbean squall and engine trouble to land last week nine miles at sea off Kingston, Jamaica, a Pan American Airways Sikorsky 543 flying from Santiago, Cuba, to Kingston struck the water hard, broached obliquely into a heavy swell. The wave ripped away the port wing pontoon and pulled the wing tip under. Into windows and seams poured the sea. Luckily a banana freighter, Elders & Fyffes' S.S. Cavina, was only 1 1/2 miles away, and before the clipper's tail plunged under like a sounding whale's, twelve passengers, four crew members, mail and luggage were safely taken off.

P:On the slopes of Mt. Maranola, Apulia, Italy, one afternoon this week, shepherds came upon a smouldering heap of wreckage. It was all that remained of a giant transport, 19 human bodies charred beyond recognition, $1,000,000 worth of jewelry. Aboard the plane, an Ala Littoria seaplane flying from hot Tirana, Albania, to Rome, had been Djafer Villa, Albanian Minister to Rome; newspapermen and photographers; a 33-year-old American woman named Helen Lindheim. Most of them were returning from the wedding of King Zog (see p. 20). The jewels were part of a collection sent from Paris and Vienna, from which Zog had chosen a trinket for his "Jerry." Official explanation of the tragedy was that the plane had plunged into fog near Foggia, Italy, and lost its way.

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