§ 7.19 p.m.
§ LORD BRABAZON OF TARA had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government whether they can give information as to what happened to a transport plane carrying A.T.S. and other personnel from Peterborough to Italy on October 3; and what arrangements were made to inform next-of-kin when the loss of this aircraft was known; and to move for Papers.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, I apologize for addressing you at this late hour. I did, however, ask my noble friend the Secretary of State, whether he would rather have this Motion taken now or postpone it, and he said he would rather have it now. As it does not interest this House so much as the country as a whole, it is just as w ell that we should go on with it. In the debate on civil aviation I raised the question of the position of Transport Command relative to the Air Ministry. If I remember aright, the Secretary of State was not in his place at the time, but he has no doubt read the debate. It is true to say, I think, that civil aviation has always been, so to speak, the step-child of the Air Ministry, ill-used and ill-nurtured. It has now been handed 145 over to another Ministry, but the Air Ministry have adopted a child of their own for the job of civil aviation, Transport Command. Many of us have tried to impress upon the world that military and civil aviation are two very separate and distinct things. I think the view we have tried to advance is justified by the results we see to-clay, by the deplorable number of accidents that have happened during this year alone. If we take our own national transport organization, B.O.A.C., which is so much maligned, we find that during the year it has had no fatal accidents whatever; yet under Transport Command —and I quite admit the circumstances are different—the casualties up to now are over 550.
§ I quite appreciate that we could have a debate on this question, and a somewhat wide one. I should not like to raise that to-night, because it is too late; but one day we might have one, and I think it would be most salutary and instructive. I am raising this question because of the sorrow which I saw myself on the part of one mother whose daughter was killed in an accident. I am not giving the name to the House, but I have given it to my noble friend the Secretary of State. The facts are these. A transport plane left Peterborough on October for Italy. I understand that there were three machines, which left more or less at the same time, and those machines carried chiefly girls from the W.A.A.F. and A.T.S. Something happened to one of those machines, we know not what; but the mother of this girl received a letter on October 13, 'ten days afterwards, stating that her child was missing. I have found out that a letter was addressed to a wrong address before that, but still, that was all that she received, on the 13th, ten days later. There was no telegram, although, of course, the fact of the disaster must have been known very shortly afterwards. What is curious is that so far there has been no official state-merit of the loss of this aircraft at all, or of possible reasons. It is true that, due to parents speaking about the accident, it has leaked out and got into the Press, but we have had no official news about it at all.
§ There are two things that I want to impress upon the Secretary of State. The first is that we are not at war at present. 146 We are nominally at peace, and a disaster like this is a major disaster. If it had happened on the railways, what a tremendous fuss there would have been about it, what inquiries, what investigations! All we get in this case—and although the people concerned were in uniform, their lives are just as valuable—is a laconic letter to the mother, saying that her child is missing. I think that it is only reasonable that parents should know all the circumstances and the possible explanation. They will want to be reassured that accidents of a similar kind will not occur. But what is the history? Still the toll of life in Transport Command continues. On October 7, 26 were killed; on October 13, at Brussels, 31 were killed; on October 20, 3 were killed, and on October 28 another 2. On November 5, on a flight from England to Italy, 20 were killed; on November II, in Italy, 7 were killed; and on November 14, 3 and the crew were killed. I know very well the history of aviation, and I have seen the bodies of my friends crushed and burned, and I know it is not a safe form of transport, that there are many hazards. But it is not as dangerous as all that! There seems to be something rotten in the state of Denmark.
§ There must be some reorganization to ensure that this distressing state of affairs does not go on. It is a shocking story, and the facts stand out without any further words of mine to emphasize them. The curious part, however, is that some of these accidents are reported and some are not. Some are known and announced to the public; some get into the Press through the private sorrow of relatives of the victims. I would ask my noble friend the Secretary of State whether he can make some plan so that some uniform policy will be followed in the future, and a more sympathetic attitude adopted towards the very human desire for all the information possible to be given at the earliest moment to the sorrowing parents. I beg to move for Papers.
§ 7.25 p.m.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (VISCOUNT STANSGATE)My Lords, I am sure that even at this late hour we shall none of us count the time ill spent on a subject so important as this, and I am sure that the noble Lord will believe me when I say that this is a matter of very deep concern to "all of us. There 147 is one point which he has made which I think is new. As he knows very well, in the war, when an officer or other rank was killed, it was the custom for his Commanding Officer to write a letter to the parents giving the circumstances. In such cases people always want to know everything, and are eager for every bit of news from anyone who has known their dear one. Whether that is done about passengers I do not know, but that is the only new point. Now, if your Lordships will excuse me, I shall read a statement which I have prepared with great care, because of the importance of this matter.
In considering the accident rate in Transport Command, one must have regard to the scale of the air transport task which the Royal Air Force is now carrying out. I would mention in parenthesis that the accidents which the noble Lord mentioned were not related by him to the enormous increase in miles flown. Your Lordships will forgive me if I remind you of the following extract from the statement on the release scheme made by the Minister of Labour on October 3:
Between October, 1945, and May, 1946, the R.A.F. is scheduled to transport about L000,000 personnel and nearly 250,000 tons of freight. Most of this transport will he over vast distances and is indispensable to the arrangements for release, repatriation, and leave in all three Services.The magnitude and urgency of this task of course preclude its being undertaken under conditions comparable with those of peace-time commercial flying. Although Transport Command are carrying out a great part of this task, Bomber Command, Coastal Command and the Heavy Bomber Group in the Mediterranean and Middle East are also making important contributions.Only a proportion of the aircraft at our disposal are genuine transport types; many of them are converted bombers. Much of the flying has to take place along routes which have had to be established at short notice over long distances, with fewer suitable airfields and a less comprehensive system of navigational aids and meteorological facilities than we should wish. The release scheme has necessarily taken away experienced aircrew and ground staff who were in early release groups, though we are now invoking the "military necessity" clause to retard the release of many 148 of these men. The reasons why we have to take this step, which is essential in the interests of safety, must be remembered when we are criticized because the release scheme does not operate evenly throughout the Royal Air Force.
Clearly then, the accident record in Transport Command must be considered in relation to the scale and character of its activities. The Command flew, in September, more than twice as many passenger-miles as it flew in January, and in October the number of passenger-miles was doubled again. Obviously in these circumstances an increase —even a considerable increase—in the number of accidents does not necessarily mean an increase in the accident rate. I am glad to assure your Lordships that the general trend of the accident rate, not only of Transport Command but in the R.A.F. as a whole, continues to be downward. Please do not think, however, that we are complacent about the number of accidents. We are always searching for means of making flying safer, and every fatal accident is the subject of a close and detailed inquiry.
Let me tell you some of the measures we are taking to reduce the risk in the air trooping scheme. In the first place, the crews of transport aircraft are specially selected. The standard of skill and experience which is expected of them is high—for example, the pilot of a fourengined transport engaged on trooping or trunk route services is expected to have done at least 1,000 hours' flying. Crews do not fly passengers over the main trunk routes until they have done two return journeys carrying freight. Bomber Command crews, although very experienced on bomber work, were inevitably below the Transport Command standard laid down for crews employed on air trooping operations, and they have, therefore, been restricted to the less exacting transport tasks. Then, in order to improve safety in the air, we arc standardizing our flying control organization and providing an extensive system of radar aids to navigation. Few such aids, suitable for our use, existed on the Continent until recently. We are providing improved and more detailed meteorological information on which flight plans can be based. Staging posts are being reorganized to enable aircraft flying on trunk routes to divert in case of unfavourable weather or other emergency.
149 I now come to the particular accident to which the noble Lord referred. The aircraft, a Lancaster of Bomber Command, left this country at 1 a.m. on October 4 to fly to Naples. It carried a crew of six, and nineteen passengers, of whom seventeen were members of the A.T.S. and two were nurses. It was last heard of at 4.40 a.m. when it was off the South Coast of France. As soon as it was known that the aircraft was missing, search action was instituted but without result. An investigation into the causes of this accident is taking place. As the noble Lord will, I am sure, appreciate, this investigation must be very thorough if it is to be of any use for our future guidance, and it will therefore take some time.
The arrangements for informing the next-of-kin, to whom the noble Lord and all other noble Lords would, I am sure, wish to join with me in expressing their deep sympathy, were as follows: The next-of-kin of the crew were notified by the unit on October 5. A telegram giving the names of the passengers was dispatched to the Air Ministry the same day. It was received in the Air Ministry on October 6, and a copy was sent to the War Office Casualty Branch, Liverpool, where it was received on October 7. The same day telegrams were sent to the recorded next-of-kin of the two nurses, one of whom was a South African and had given the name of a person living in this country as the individual to be notified. Also on that day, October 7, the names of the A.T.S. personnel were telegraphed to the A.T.S. Record Office at Winchester, which notified the next-of-kin, as recorded in that office, on October 8.
In the case of the member of the A.T.S. to whom the noble Lord referred, the notification was sent to the relative whose address had been recorded at the Record Office by the member concerned. It subsequently transpired that this was not the address at which the member's mother then was, and my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State for War, has asked me to express his regret for any delay that may have occurred in notifying the mother. All the A.T.S. victims of the fatality were other ranks, and the notifications from the Record Office were sent by letter, in accordance with the normal War Office practice.
150 The noble Lord asked: "Why was there no official announcement made here of this accident?" The answer is that the accident occurred before the Air Ministry began to issue communiqués regarding accidents to troop and passenger carrying aircraft. It was, in fact, an overlapping from war practice. It has gone now, but that is the reason. Full particulars were, however, given to a London newspaper on October 19 in response to an inquiry on the subject. The new practice perhaps should have been adopted earlier. Anyway, it is in force now, and communiqués are being issued on all air accidents involving passengers in R.A.F. aircraft. We must, of course, take into account not only the public interest in receiving early details, but also the need for ensuring, as far as possible, that the next-of-kin receive their first intimation through official channels. For this reason we cannot issue a fullcommuniqué until steps have been taken to inform the next-of-kin. Al the same time, the Press often learns through other sources of an aircraft accident before we are ready to issue our communiqué and when they ask the Air Ministry for confirmation. we do, in fact, give them as much information as possible in advance of issuing a communiqué.
I have just now described the old procedure. Noble Lords will understand that any Department is extremely anxious that no possible mistake should occur in notifying a casualty. It would be a most painful and unfortunate thing if someone were informed that there had been a loss and it was found that the notification had been given to the wrong address or that: a wrong person was named. Therefore all the old arrargements were made with that in mind. You must be certain before you give dreadful news to anybody. But I was not satisfied that the old procedure was sufficient because, as your Lordships will realize, if an accident is announced, those who have any relative who is likely to have been travelling on the route concerned, will naturally be laid under a great burden of anxiety. They will fear that their relative may have been in the accident.
What was required was a speeding up in the notification of the names, and this is the new procedure which has been evolved and is now in operation. The old procedure has been reviewed with the object of speeding up the notification to 151 the next-of-kin, so that a communiqué may be issued at the earliest possible moment, giving the names of the occupants and saying whether they were killed, missing or injured. It has now been agreed with the other Service Departments that, in the case of any aircraft carrying Service personnel from an airfield in this country it will be the responsibility of the R.A.F. unit to which the aircraft belongs —whatever the Service to which the passenger belongs—-to notify casualties to all next-of-kin resident in this country. By this means we shall eliminate a number of channels through which the information has previously passed, and in most cases we should be able to issue our communiqués within a few hours of the accident becoming known.
As the noble Lord has said, no explanation has been given of this accident. A full investigation into this accident is proceeding and as soon as it has been completed I propose to make a statement in your Lordships' House. I have been asked to agree that inquiries into major aircraft accidents occurring in peace-time should be made public. This is not the first time that a similar suggestion has been made. For example, it was dealt with by Earl Baldwin, then Mr. Baldwin, when he was Prime Minister, in 1927. He said:
There is a natural objection to making the kind of criticism that is necessary in cases like this, and to bringing individuals into that criticism, if you know that that criticism is going to he made public. Nor again would witnesses—and this is of the utmost importance—speak with anything like the same freedom if they thought their evidence was going to be made public.152 The practice of treating the reports of Service Courts of Inquiry as confidential is one which has been generally accepted for a very long time and I do not think it has been seriously questioned; but I can assure the noble Lord that I shall always be ready to give as much information as possible—subject to security considerations —about accidents which arouse public interest.
§ 7.38 p.m.
§ LORD BRABAZON OF TARAMy Lords, it has been very distressing to myself to have to raise this matter, and I am sure that it has been equally distressing to my noble friend the Secretary of State to deal with this question on behalf of the Department for which he bears official responsibility, for I know his kindly nature. But although I have delayed raising the matter until this late moment, I think it has been well worth while doing so because it has given the opportunity for my noble friend Lord. Stansgate to tell the House what has been the past procedure in relation to these matters, what, perhaps, have been emissions, and what new methods are going to be employed in the future. I feel that what he has said will reassure many people—those who have lost relatives or friends in the past, and those unfortunate people who may be potential losers of their kith and kin. I thank the noble Lord most warmly for his courtesy in answering my question, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
§ House adjourned at twenty minutes before eight o'clock.