| Crash site | Mbeya airfield , Tanganyika |
| Airline | Imperial Airways |
| Aircraft | De Havilland DH 66 Hercules – G-EBMY – City of Baghdad |
| Route | Kisumu – Dodoma – Mbeya |
| Crew | ? |
| Passengers | ? |
The crash
From January 1932 Imperial Airways introduced the service all the way from London, England to Cape Town, South Africa. The different stretches on the flight were carried out by different airplanes and the stage from Paris to Athens or Brindisi was by train.
The first flight on the southbound service started from Croydon on 20 January. On 27 January the “City of Arundel” arrived at Kisumu airfiled. The mail was transferred to “City of Baghdad” which took off for Dodoma the next day. On 29 January the plane continued to Mbeya. Due to poor radio communication the pilot was unaware that the Mbeya airfield was very suggy due to heavy rain. The plane landed, but was not able to take off again with the full load. The passengers and the mail bags were transported by car 10 miles away.to Mbalezi.
After more trouble underway the mail finally arrived at Cape Town on 2 February 1932 on board “City of Karachi”.
The mail
After more trouble underway the mail finally arrived at Cape Town on 2 February 1932 on board “City of Karachi”.
As this first flight was a great event much philatelic mail was carried from the different stages of the flight. When the flight departed from London 20 January there was ca. 20.000 covers incl. mail from Norway and Sweden.
So far I have only recorded one Nordic item.
Examples of mail
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Special printed cover from Norway with postmark OSLO BR 1 14.1.32 and addressed to Cape Town, South Africa where it arrived 2-FEB 32 according to the arrival postmark on the back. |
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