Potez 25 crash on the Paris–Bucharest route

Investigation

Map legend, Hříbal's testimony, Vysoká pláň / northwestern variant, Vysoká hole / Brandzejf, Grey markers denote named landmarks in the sources; coloured markers the three alternative areas of the accident site.

The gendarmerie station was informed of the crash by the forest administration in Stará Ves. After arriving at the site, the gendarmes notified the district political administration in Rýmařov, the gendarmerie command, the garrison command in Olomouc and the military command in Bucharest. They also secured the airmen's personal belongings found in the wreckage, recorded them in an official inventory and took them to Alfrédova chata. They then guarded the crashed aircraft until the final decision of the Olomouc garrison command.

The exact crash site was not determined. Hříbal's testimony placed it northeast of Jelení studánka, on the gentle southern slope of Jelení hřbet between Jelení studánka and Malý kotel. Bubeníček's report of 13 September, by contrast, gave Vysoká pláň, approximately 400 paces northwest of Jelení studánka, and the district governor announced on 14 September that the aircraft had struck Vysoká pláň from the south. A report attributed to the gendarmerie station in Stará Ves likewise placed the wreck approximately 400 paces northwest of Jelení studánka, in the cadastral area of Žďárský Potok. Vrobel located the accident in the then cadastral area of Brandzejf on the Vysoká hole ridge near Jelení studánka.

During a visit to the accident area in 1967, Bănciulescu-Cozadini and Bănciulescu suggested that the crew, approaching from the southwest in fog, mistook a gap between the surrounding slopes for an opening into a wider valley and subsequently collided with the high terrain of Vysoká hole.

Jan Hloch, a gendarme assigned to Stará Ves several months after the accident, later recalled that the impact left a pit approximately one metre deep and several metres long. Visitors were still collecting remains of the aircraft for several years afterwards, and according to him the crash site was recognisable even in 1936.

Miloslav Marek, who studied the archival documents on the accident, stated that neither photographs of the locality nor later searches for surviving wreckage made it possible to determine the site more precisely. As a possible explanation for the unsuccessful search he cited the extensive growth of dwarf mountain pine and also the possibility that almost all the wreckage had been removed from the site before transport to Olomouc.

The Olomouc military commission examined the wreck at Jelení studánka on 14 September 1926. Because both crew members had already been taken away from the site, the commission was unable to determine their original position in the wreck or whether they had been strapped in with safety belts.

The inspection recorded extensive impact damage to the engine, wings, fuselage and controls. The fuel tanks had been torn open and ripped out of the aircraft. The fuel line cocks, the tachometer and other instruments could not be found; the report stated that they had probably been stolen by civilians.

Among the items recovered from the wreck were clothing, footwear, money, wristwatches, personal belongings and a bundle of red, yellow and blue silk. According to Bănciulescu-Cozadini and Bănciulescu, the coloured strips of silk were to have been unfurled over the Romanian airfield upon arrival.

The wreck was subsequently transported to Aviation Regiment No. 2 in Olomouc.