1933 Imperial Airways Diksmuide crash

Investigation and inquest

The subsequent investigation found that the fire had started towards the rear of the plane, in either the lavatory or the luggage area at the back of the cabin. No items recovered from the front portion of the wreckage showed any evidence of fire damage before the impact, nor was there any evidence of fire in the engines or fuel systems. The investigators narrowed the cause down to the firing of some combustible substance, either accidentally by a passenger or crew member or through vibration or some other natural occurrence, or deliberately by bombing. At the request of investigators from the Air Ministry, Voss' funeral was delayed pending inquiries.

At the inquest into Albert Voss's death at least one witness, his estranged brother, accused him of being culpable, claiming that Voss's business trips to the continent to buy anesthetics masked a lucrative sideline in drug smuggling. This rumor had followed Voss for some time before his death and was alleged to have been the subject of investigations by the Metropolitan Police. Voss, according to his brother, was travelling aboard the aircraft together with his niece, and they were aware that the authorities were on to them. Under this theory, Voss sought to escape from the authorities by destroying the aircraft using various flammable substances, to which his work gave him easy access, and then bailing out in the confused circumstances, hoping that in the aftermath no one would notice one fewer body than there should have been. The flight was 36 minutes behind schedule when the plane took off; had the plane taken off on time and the fire started at the same point during the flight, the City of Liverpool would have crashed into the English Channel, likely complicating any forensic recovery operations. A postmortem ordered by the coroner showed that, other than some minor burns, Voss was unharmed before he exited the aircraft. The inquest jury returned an open verdict – indicating that they believed his death may not have been accidental, but that they were unable, on the evidence before them, to come to a definite conclusion – rather than the verdict of accidental death the coroner attempted to direct them towards.