than was considered necessary at the time. In the meantime, all Comets were to be grounded until the turbine modifications had been carried out. The New York Times reported on 12 January that BOAC had temporarily withdrawn all of their de Havilland Comet jet airliners from service, as a result of the crash, and that the two French airlines that used the Comet—Air France and Union Aero Maritime des Transports—had also suspended their Comet services. BOAC had confirmed that their Comet routes would be flown with alternative aircraft to minimise the disruption to the service schedule. The airline emphasized that the planes had not been officially grounded by the British government, but that the action was being taken as "a measure of prudence to enable a minute and unhurried technical examination of every aircraft in the Comet fleet to be carried out at maintenance headquarters at London airport." While the official investigation efforts began, BOAC were determined to return their Comets to passenger service as soon as possible, and succeeded in doing so on 23 March, just ten weeks after the crash. BOAC's chairman commented on television, "We obviously wouldn't be flying the Comet with passengers if we weren't satisfied conditions were suitable." However, a second BOAC de Havilland Comet, registered G-ALYY, was lost on 8 April 1954: a charter flight, operating as South African Airways Flight 201, departed from Rome bound for Egypt with fourteen passengers and seven crew on board; thirty-three minutes into the flight the pilot reported on course flying at 10,000 metres, then all contact was lost. Sir Arnold Hall, a Cambridge University scholar and scientist and then-head of the RAE, was appointed as the head accident investigator. Original investigation Initial examination and reconstruction of the wreckage of G-ALYP revealed several signs of inflight break-up: Shreds of cabin carpet were found trapped in the remains of the Comet's tail section The imprint of a coin was found on a fuselage panel from the rear of the aircraft Smears and scoring on the rear fuselage were tested and found to be consistent to the paint applied to the passenger seats of the Comet With most of the wreckage recovered, investigators found that fractures started in the roof of the cabin, a window then smashed into the elevators, the rear fuselage then tore away, the outer wing structure fell, then the outer wing tips and finally the cockpit