mmm in mist

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 129, 2 June 1937, Page 12

mmm in mist

MACHINE STRIKES

HILL

PROMINENT CITIZEN

KILLED

(By TeJeoraph.) (Special to the "Evening Post.") STRATFOED, This Day. The Wellington Aero Club's Miles Hawk aeroplane, when flying from Wellington to Auckland, crashed on a farm property four miles west of Stratfora about 10 o'clock this morning. The passenger, Mr. P. J. Nathan, a wellknown Wellington merchant, was killed instantly and the pilot, Mr. C. H. Dunford, of Wellington, who is an employee of. Messrs. Joseph Nathan, was removed to the Stratford Hospital suffering from a compound fracture of the left ankle and bruises on the head and face. The . machine was completely wrecked, portions being strewn over a ■wide area. Occupants of a farmhouse nearby heard the crash and on investigation found the pilot attempting to extricate himself, from the wreckage. Mr. Nathan had received shocking injuries. When a heavy fog and a strong northerly Wind were encountered the pilot decided to turn back. In poor visibility the machine struck a hillock, damaging the undercarriage. The aeroplane rose again but was out of control and travelled only 300 yards, losing a wheel in a fence and part of the propeller before it fell to pieces in a gully. The engine was found forty feet away from the wreckage. Little is left of the aeroplane but a heap of wreckage in the shallow gully, which is a quarter of a mile from the main road to the Stratford Mountain House, two miles frpm the Mt. Egniont Reserve radius line. MACHINE OUT OF CONTROL. When first seen by farmers the aeroplane was flying low, seeking an opening inUhe low driving mist against a 25-mile-an-hour wind, and the crash occurred when the pilot was circling, apparently to return to the south. The machine narrowly missed the power lines and the right wheel struck a sloping hillside, the right wing crashing into the ground. Eye-witnesses said that the aeroplane bounced into ' the air and with the pilot endeavouring to regain control it staggered along for nearly a quarter of a mile, when it "pancaked" heavily on the top of another undulating ridge. The engine was at this stage wrenched from the aeroplane and the fuselage and wings crumpled into a mass of wreckage which rolled into a shallow gully. ■ Mr. John Davidson saw the machine strike the ground on both occasions from half a mile away. He drove furiously in his gig across the paddock and arrived at the scene simultaneously with others from neighbouring farms, who had been attracted by the'aeroplane's low circling in the mist and had realised that a crash was imminent. ■ • - • ■■',!■' ;Mr. Nathan was lying by the side of the splintered cockpit, it being Obvious that-he was killed instantly in the final crash. Dunford was conscious, but he was in a bad way when helped from the cockpit, said Mr. Davidson. "He kept inquiring about his passenger. He told us he had intended to land at New Plymouth so that Mr. Nathan could telephone his wife at Wellington that he had got through safely. He told us his name and asked that we communicate with Mr. H. E--Pacey in Wellington." Witnesses of the crash all said it appeared that the plane was attempting to land. It was thought that the machine was running short of petrol. The terrain in the vicinity affords no reasonably safe landing place for such a fast machine, and Stratford pilots who inspected the sceiie presumed that the machine had been forced down by the very low ceiling. The country nearby is undulating with low ridges and shallow gullies, and the pilot was unfortunate to touch the hillside while attempting to clear the top of a 50ft slope. LITTLE LJEFT *T>R SALVAGE. Portions of fabric and woodwork were scattered, and nothing is worth' salvage for reconstruction of the machine except the engine, which is that, of the machine flown in the Centenary Air Race by Messrs. McGregor and Walker. The machine was of unusual interest to the people of the district in which the crash occurred, as it made the first official landing at the new Stratford aerodrome, . five miles from the scene of " the tragedy, at the beginning of May. It was piloted on that occasion by Mr. ■ Walker, with Mr. E. A. Gibson, Public Works-Aerodrome Engineer, as a pas- ; aenger. It visited Stratford "again at ' the opening pageant on Coronation '. Day, piloted by Mr. Eric Lloyd. Mrs. Davidson telephoned to a Stratford doctor without delay, and Mr. Dunford was given first-aid treatment while waiting for the ambulance. He was then rusheS to the Stratford - Public Hospital, where an operation was performed. An inquiry' at the Stratford Hospituliat 1.30 p.m. revealed, that Mr. Duniera's condition was quite satisfactory.