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Show II DECLARES DISASTER I DUE TO OVERLOADING ft BERLIN. Sept. JO. Major von Parses' Parse-s' val, well-known balloon and aeroplane ll ronslructor, today declared that tho de-'f. de-'f. struction of the naval airship was (S brought about by overloading the vessel B with an extra crew. Tho airship reached a its highest altitude, Major Parseval con-U con-U tended, only by means of Its motors, the If body of the craft serving as an aerii-;v aerii-;v plane. The loss of gas when the bal- loon passed through cold atmosphere added to the overweight, and when it bc-cumc necessary to descend the airship foil rapidly and was crumpled by Impact wiih the sea. A friend of Captain Mamie's, In a statement tonight, said that Hanne knew that the L-l was loo heavy for a big crew and had remarked on one occasion that he expected some day to be obliged to make- a swift glide to the earth. The new L-2 has a lifting capacity of three and a half tons more than had the L-l. An official report Issued tonight says the disaster to the dirigible 1.-1 detracts nothing from the worth of the rigid system sys-tem airship as an instrument of war. The loss of the dirigible, it points out, was not due to technical deficiencies, lack of ballast or loss of gas, but solely to 1hi greater power of unusual weather conditions. Sudden gusts, sometimes horizontally, hor-izontally, sometimes vertical, drove the airship several hundred yards up and then down and finally tho prow struck the water jso violently Hint the craft broke In several places amidships. The report denies that the dirigible was overloaded, over-loaded, as part of her war equipment was not on board. She sank in 130 feet of 1 water. |