DETAILS ON AIR CRASH KILLING CHINESE COMMUNIST DELEGATES TO AFRO-ASIAN CONFERENCE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 02655355
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: July 13, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 25, 2022
• Case Number: F-2021-00652
• Publication Date: May 16, 1955

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SEE BOTTOM OF PAGE FOR ADDITIONAL SPECIAL
INFORMATION REPORT
PREPARED AND DISSEMINATED BY
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
CONTROLS, IF ANY
This material contains information affecting the
National Defense of the United States within the
meaning of the Espionage Laws, Title 18. U. S. C.
Secs. 793 and 794, the transmission or revelation
of which in any manner to an unauthorized per-
son is prohibited by law.
COUNTRY IratTa �sr
SUBJECT
Details on Air Crash Killing Chinese Communist
Delegates to Afro-Asian Conference
PLACE ACAlti(B1tlurce)
DATE ACQUIRED (By source)
Apr 55
Trtr:
DATE OF INFORMATION (Date or e �which,
events or conditions described in p. Aisted)
Apr 55
REPORT NO.
oo_a
DATE DiSTRIBUTED
1U MAY 195S
NO. OF PAGES
NO. OF LNCLS.
EMENT TO REPORcirif
RESPONSIVE TO
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
SOURCE US citizen, foreign representative of a large US company with extensive
foreign investments.
He travels continuously on behalf of his US principals to examine and re-
ports on civil and military air activities in the various countries of the
Far East. Whenever a major air crash occurs, it is one of his responsi-
bilities to immediately proceed to the scene and learn as much as he can
about what happened. He has had many years experience in this type of
investigation, we well as 4 long time acquaintance with influential govern-
ment and business leaders in the countries of the Far East. He has been a
long time source and his reliability is not questioned.
1. I arrived in Singapore at 1500 'Jr on Saturday, 16 April (just in time to
see Chou En Lai board an Indian Airlines DC-4 en route to Djakarta and
heavily guarded). Was met at the airport by Capt Vishwanath (Senior Flight
Superintendent for Air India International), Mk Raba (Deputy Director
General of Civil Aviation for India), Mr (Chief Inspector of
Accidents, Indian Civil Aviation), and Mk Kaul WI Station Manager for
Singapore). All of them were cordial and pleased to see me, but made it
very plain that pending clarification of instructions from India, I was
not to question the three survivors of the accident nor would I be given
any details. However, Capt Vishwanath, a long time friend, gave me all
the information known, on the following day -- with the request that I
keep it confidential. The Indian Government was apparently very anxious
to keep the accident details quiet and I was so informed on Saturday by
Mk Tendon, the Indian High Commissioner for Singapore.
2. Also met Mk Rendle (Dept Civil Aviation, Singapore), and Mk Ford (Airport
Manager), neither of wham was able to provide any details of the accident.
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3. 167 y a manufacturer's technical representative, based in Bombay
had sarived in Singapore that same, day (Saturday, April 16) via, All service,
but did not meet me upon arrival As he had not been informed by All. We
met the following day.
. The accident occurred in Indonesian waters and Indonesia had, therefore,
elected to conduct the investigation, appointing a five to seven man com-
mittee. The Singapore Government is grateful, of course, the only con-
nection being the sea and air rescue attempts by the Royal Navy units based
in Singapore which was done at the request of the Indonesian Government.
Salvage of the wrecked aircraft will be attempted by Indonesia although
Royal Navy personnel believe they do not have the necessary equipment. It
any case, salvage operations will require at least a month.
The three survivors of the accident were Copilot Dixit, Mk Fatbak (Navigator),
and Mk Karnik (a ground mechanic who flies with the aircraft on charter opera-
tions), all of whom suffered injuries. They were brought to the Singapore
b)(3)
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Royal Navy hospital and on Sunday, April 17 were put on board an All
scheduled-service Constellation in Singapore and returned to Bombay.
Thirty minutes prior to their departure, a cable was received from
the Indonesian accident investigating committee requesting that the
survivors be held in Singapore for questioning by the Indonesians.
Alter hectic consultations, it was finally decided to release the
survivors despite the request and they departed per scbedule.
Despite the Indian attempt to maintain secrecy, the Singapore press
on Monday morning (April 18) carried articles, date lined Bombay,
outlining the details of accident as reported by the survivors which
underlined the sabotage possibility. The press story was released
by Air India International and is believed to be contrary to the
wishes of the Indian Government. At any rate,. the Indians in Singapore
were most upset, because the press article was, in essence, the story
as given in Singapore by the survivors and was meant to be kept con-
fidential.
After the survivors departed Singapore, the only reason for our (Raba,
Nalhotra, Faust and myself) continued stay was the expected arrival
here of the Indonesian Committee, but no further word was received from
them. Yesterday, Monday, April 18, it was learned unofficially that the
Indonesian committee was proceeding directly to Bombay from Djakarta
(via the All Constellation that carried Nehru to Djakarta for the Afro-
Asian conference). This was finally confirmed late last night only
after receiving the passenger list from Djakarta. Therefore, there
is no point in staying any longer in Singapore. Raba, Malhotra and
Faust will return to Bombay on the first available (seat space is very
difficult from Singapore) and I will be returning to Bangkok tomorrow
morning.
8. The details of the accident known so far are based on the survivors
accounts. They feel strongly that it was a case of sabotage, but
the actual cause will not be definitely known until the aircraft is
retrieved from the water and carefully examined. Unfortunately,
the press release by Air India has seriously prejudiced the investi-
gation already. Incidentally, it is believed that Indonesia will
permit Chinese Communist investigators to examine the wreckage.
9. The atory so far, outlined in Too-B-85287_/ is Approximately as
follows :
a. Aircraft VT-DEP (LAC S/N 2666) with approximately 14 thousand
total aircraft hours was flown from Bombay to Hong Kong (stopping
in Bang4ok where I met Captain altar who was later killed) on a
charter flight where it was to pick, up eleven communist delegates
to the Afro-Asian Conference and to fly them to Djakarta' Indonesia,
10. On depa ure Bombay, the aircraft returned to the ramp due to a flick-
ering BP on No 2 engine. This was corrected and the aircraft flew to
Hong Kbpg with no flight discrepancies noted in the log. The ground
mechanic traveling with aircraft changed an ignition distributor on No
2 engine in Hong Kong, reason unknown here.
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11. After picking up the Communist delegates, the aircraft departed
Hong Kong with a T 0 Wof approximately 98,000 lbs. (eleven pasamger
and eight crew--no radio operator) on a direct_ flight to Djakarta _
with approximately 10 hours fuel on board. *POW: Take Off Weight/
12. At 0915 GMT (still daylight in that area) the aircraft gave a
position report while flying at 18,000 feet and reported all was
normal. Shortly after the report (matter of couple minutes)
the crew heard a "dull thud" or "mild explosion", some of the
crew likened it to the sound of gear latching up or down. Karnik
(ground mechanic) was dozing in a passenger seat up forward and
be came to and vent into the cockpit to learn what had happened.
All instrumentation was reported to be normal.
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13. Karnik then went back into the passenger compartment and noted
smoke from the air conditioning overhead outlets. He opened
the galley floor hatch into the forward cargo compartment but
saw no smoke there. He dashed into the flight station and re-
ported a cargo compartment fire (he naturally assumed it was
the rear cargo) and says that he saw the rear cargo compartment
fire warning light on. (This is obviously incorrect as there
were no smoke detectors installed on this aircraft.)
14. At any rate, Capt Jatar called for release of one CO2 shot into
the rear cargo hold and started a rapid descent. It is not known
if the recirculating fans were turned off nor what depressuri-
zation procedure was used.
15. Karnik then went back into the cabin and found a dense gray smoke
filling the cabin but also saw fire along the R H wing trailing
edge near the fuselage* He again dashed to the flight station
to inform of this which was shortly followed by the zone 2-3 fire
warning light on No 3 engine. The fire was then spreading out-
board along the R H wing trailing edge.
16. Capt Jatar called for feathering of No 31 although the engine was
operating quite normally, and requested the final CE2 shot into
No 3 engine.
17. With the feathering: the Flight Engineer turned off all generators
(thinking perhaps, to attempt isolation of the smoke source). At
about the same time, it was noted that hydraulic pressure was gone.
(No details on this, but it is assumed that primary and secondary
were gone as the co-pilot turned on the auxiliary elevator and
rudder boosters).
18. At this point (approximately 8000 foot altitude) Captain Jatar made
his Mayday call and gave a position report with. the cockpit filled
with smoke and instrument panel visibility almost zero. (shortly
before crashing, co-pilot recalls seeing 140 knots on the A S I).
With both pilots holding controls full left, the aircraft continued
to stay in a shallow right bank andepparently struck the water in that
attitude.
19. Jatar Is Mayday call was picked up by Djakarta and Singapore, but neither
receixed his following position report (which was probably due to lack
of electrical power with generators off). Djakarta, therefore, made a cal-
culation of his position report (which turned out to be quite accurate)
and requested assistance from Singapore and alerted all aircraft and
shipping in the area.
20. Prior to crashing, the hostess, Miss Gloria Berry, passed life vests to
all passengers and crew. Karnik apparently opened emergency exits in
the cabin and navigator 'a compartment, and both pilots opened their sliding
windshields to remove smoke (not known what the sequence was nor the affect
it had). The engines were all functioning normally at all times.
NOPORN
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21 After the crash, the copilot recalls evacuating through his sliding
windshield opening, under waters and coming to the surface with life
vest. The other two survivors do not know how they got out. Karnik
reports that there was fire on the surface of the water immediately af-
ter the crash and he yelled to one of the survivors to swim away from
it. Karnik at that time was clinging to a part of the structure but
left it when he found it was sinking.
22. The three survivors- were near each other at first and at this time they
saw three other people floating at a distance one of whom kept yelling,
"Cone near me." A bit later, one of the three began flashing a flash-
lights The survivors feel that there were other crew members because
of their English speech and the possession of a flashlight.
23. Although they were only a little over a mile from the island of Atli,
tide carried them away from there onto other islands. Two of them (Dixit
and Karnik) landed on the beach of Batu Hills Island and Pathak landed
on the adjecent island of Penganak.
24. Natives helped them on Batu Bills, Penganak is apparently uninhabited.
They all remained on the islands over night and natives rowed them
back to the island of Genting the next morning Where they were picked
up by an Indonesian coastal freighter, the TAYPE. Later that day
they were transferred to a Royal Navy Hydrographic Survey ship the
HMS DAMPIER where they were given adequate medical attention. The
DAMPIER then made a search of the islands in the area for other survi-
vors but were unable to find any and took the survivors to Singapore.
The survivors were given radioed instructions while on HMS DAMPIER,
not to give any information to anyone but Indian authorities.
25. Yesterday ZI.8 Apri17, I talked to the Commander of the DAMPIER and
his senior diving Zfficersatthe Singapore Naval Base. After bringing
the survivors to Singapore, the DAMPIER returned to the accident scene
and found two Indonesian boats anchored to the ureckage. They were
using local skin divers to plot the attitude. DAMPIER sent four line
equipped divers down during the course of one day.
26. The aircraft is lying in sheltered clear water 32 feet under on a sand
bank. Position is 03-53.2 Ns 107-59.7 E. The largest island nearby
is Great Natuna. Divers report that visibility is quite good except
the sand easily billows into underwater clouds,
27. During the Royal Navy dives-, three bodies that had been in the fuselage
were disturbed by divers lines and surfaced. Their life vests had been
inflated. Two of the bodies have been identified (one was IP-Cunha the
Mot engineer, and the other a steward), the third body, headless,
is unidentified. The flight engineer had serious injuries to the left
side of the head, no other injuries apparent.
28. Information reached here yesterday that the Indonesian divers had found
seven more bodies, one of which is presumed to be another crew member.
29. As for the wreckage, the Royal Navy diver reported that,
a. The nose section of the aircraft appears to be intact except for
the plastic nose tip.
b. The B H wing root is still attached but the wing surface is bent
upward a "short' distance from the fuselage. He did not notice if
Number 3 or 4 engines were still attached.
The aircraft is lying in approximately level position.
The L H wing is still attachedto fuselage but angling up to
ward the tip and it appeared to him to be bent forward as well.
Again, he did not notice engines.
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e. A landing gear (dual wheels) is located between L II wing leading
edge and the nose.
f. He could see daylight (from inside fuselage) through top and
R H side of navigator's compartment.
g.
Found a large hole (torn) in floor of passenger compartment
approximately four seats aft of galley bulkhead.
h. Did not have time to explore further aft of fuselage either
internally or externally.
. They recovered a few broken bits of metal, fwd, cargo compart-
ment floor access door and one cabin heater. Only the cabin heater
shows signs of fire. It is not clear whether this is the B H or
L H heater. I was not allowed to see the unit as it has been
given to the Police Department under strict orders to hold for
the Indonesian authorities.
j. Royal Navy divers do not believe Indonesia has salvage equipment.
30. The above, I believe, provides all the information accurately as we
have been able to determine it up to now,
Mt. ACT-BATE Mfg-IR-DAIL
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