Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-04-05
DID NOCQUET DIE
 OF HEART FAILURE.
CORONER WILL INVESTIGATE
 THE AERONAUTs DEATH.
Believed That He Was Crazed When He Thought He Was Being Car ried Out to Sea and Died
 From Exhaustion.

|, New York, April 5.-A coroner's investigation into the tragic death of Paul Nocquet, the young balloon ist who perished in a Long Island salt marsh Tuesday night after he had safely landed from a perilous ascension, will be made tomorrow.
 To determine the exact cause of his death an autopsy will be held. It is believed that Nocquet died from heart failure, following complete physical exhaustion and the mental anguish he must have felt when he believed he was being carried to seq by the big gas-fllled bag.
 The theory that he was crazed by fear was strengthened by additional facts concerning his flight which were leafned after the finding of his body last night. That his balloon became partly manageable per haps several hours before he landed on the ocean beach appears from an appeal which he shouted from his car while passing over Garden City, Long Island, and which was heard by boys of that place. The balloon passed over the city at height Of about 300 feet, moving rapidly.
 T have been trying for long time to make a landing" the aero naut shouted, "but my grappling an- chor was torn loose away back where 1t caught tree. have been trying to get down ever since but couldn't. !"
 By the time he spoke, these words he passed beyond the boys hearing. That he was afterward carried out to sea appeared from the marks made on Jones Beach by the car, which was plainly dragged pumping here and there in the sand from the waters edge to a point some dis tance inshore. An examination Of Nocquet's footprints, when on leav- ing the balloon in the darkness he made his fatal mistake in direction shows that he apparently ran part of the time. His error in direction is explained by the inhabitants about Jones Beach, who say that at night the lights at Amityville appear but short distance away from the place where Nocquet landed, although i'll reality they are four miles distant. In following these deceptive lights he waded marshes, swan creeks and floundered through the mud.
 Other aeronauts who assisted Noc- quet in making his start from New York city on Tuesday afternoon and who examined the balloon as 1t lay on the beach could not discover 6 reason why the balloonist should not have been able to land long before he did by allowing the gas to escape from the bag. One explanation of fered was the fact that Nocquet was often heard to say he believed that even If balloon was carried out to sea there was always low lying current of afr flowing inshore which would carry the aeronaut back to safety when he began to drop toward the sea.
 Several members of the Aero club of America to-day went to the scene of NocQuet's death to make an ex- animation of his course after leav- ing the stranded balloon in hope of obtaining some further information which will throw more light upon the circumstances of his death. They said that it would have been easy for him to spend the night in his car on the beach and that aeronauts who landed at night have frequently done this.