FOOD RELIEF PLANE CRASHES

Chronicle (Levin), 14 February 1947, Page 5

FOOD RELIEF PLANE CRASHES

all seven of crew killed Received Friday. 9.45 a.m. LONDON, Feb. 13. When an R.A.F. Halifax bomber parachuting food to a snowbound Staffordshire village crashed this morning all seven of the crew were killed. The bomber was one of many which are being used to take food to towns and villages which have been cut off for up to six days by the Arctic conditions in Britain. Tne pilot reached his objective — the village of Butterton— and radioed that conditions had grown worse since the previous mercy flights to the area. The bomber was then seen to explode in midair. It crashed on to Gindon Moor, two rndies from the village. Local residents rushed to the crash and found containers attached fo the green parac'hutes strewn round the plane. One man was alive in the rear cockpit, but he died later. A Royal Air Force mountain rescue party has left for the scene. Two of those aboard the Halifax were Press photographers. The Air Ministry said that no further attempts to dump food would be made today. Earlier it was intended to drop a paratrooper from a position obtained by radar. He was to set up a portable radar beacon and "home" Halifaxes on to the position, so that they could drop supplies from a safe height in the clouds.