Usually, whenever I have to chauffeur folks around I take along a briefcase with various and sundry items such as books, electronic chess, paper, etc. with which to amuse myself during the inevitable waits. On the last trip to Madison I somehow forgot my normal accoutrement, and so, having some time, gravitated toward the nearest bookstore. There I discovered William Norris's The Man Who Fell From the Sky, a remaindered book on sale for $1.48. It concerns the investigation of an old aviation mystery. Fabulously wealthy financial tycoon Alfred Loewenstein, left England for a routine flight to the Continent in his new eight passenger Fokker trimotor on July 4, 1928. He never made it. Somewhere over the English Channel he left the plane, either through accident, murder, or suicide.
Surprisingly, there was little official investigation, despite numerous mysteries. For example, why had the pilot landed on a beach even though an airport was close by? and why did the other passengers not notice anything unusual? The authorities were more than happy to declare that since the incident happened over the channel, no one had jurisdiction. The quasi-official verdict - even after his body was found nude floating in the channel, and even after Fokker mechanics demonstrated that it was almost impossible to open the only door during flight because of the tremendous air pressure against it from the slipstream and prop-wash -- was accidental death.
Norris became intrigued by the case in 1984. He dug back through the files and learned an enormous amount of material about the financial skullduggery of the period just before the great crash. He became convinced Loewenstein's death was murder - the question became how was it done in a plane with 8 others on board and a door that was impossible to open while in flight. He makes a good case for how the crime was committed and perhaps why, but his speculation about who the perpetrator was rests on the flimsiest of evidence. Even so, it's an interesting piece of real-life detective work.
