FAMOUS AIRMAN DEAD

Evening Star, Issue 22449, 21 September 1936, Page 9

FAMOUS AIRMAN DEAD

CAMPBELL-BLACK FATALLY INJURED GROUND COLLISION AT AERODROME press Association—By Telegraph Copyright LONDON, September 20.

In the aviation equivalent of a pushhike collision, Mr T. Campbell-Black was fatally injured at Speke, aerodrome, Liverpool, in Miss Liverpool the First, which was presented to the city by a local business man, Mr John Moores, who was giving a party at the aerodrome when the accident occurred. The machine was to have competed in the Johannesburg race under Black’s pilotage. Black had completed a test flight and landed safely. He climbed into the plane again in order to take off for Gravesend to undertake final preparations for the South African flight. He then taxied preparatory to rising, when he collided with a large Air Force instructional Hawker Hart bomber, which was returning after a flight, and was also taxi-ing. Neither was apparently aware of the proximity of the other. The Hawker Hart just before the impact swung in a turn, but too late, and its revolving propeller tore up Black’s cockpit. Both planes, after travelling 20yds, interlocked and stopped. The crew of the Hawker Hart jumped out uninjured, but Black was lifted from the cockpit in a dying condition. He was severely injured on the left side, including a head injury and punctured lung. An eye-witness said that both planes were taxi-ing at 15 miles an hour. The weather was misty and overcast, and the white body and black wings of Black’s machine apparently reduced visibility, preventing the Air Force pilot from perceiving him. Suddenly either or both of the machines swerved, the Hawker Hart piling itself on top of Black’s little plane.

The designer of Black’s machine, Captain Percival, was greatly shocked. He referred to the irony of fate overtaking Black after escapes from the perils of previous dangerous flights, Mr C. W. A. Scott, in a broadcast speech, sounded a similar note, adding: “ It is impossible to be cooped up in a small aeroplane for three days and three nights with a man, struggling together to achieve a definite goal, and not learn to know, respect, and love him.” [T. Campbell-Black was the co-pilot of C. W. A. Scott in the machine which won the Centenary Air Race from Tvirn/lonlinll to Melbourne in October, 1934. During the war he served in the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Air Force. In 1931 he completed a flight linking up the four capitals of the British dependencies in East Africa in one day. When the present King was in Africa, CampbellBlack was his pilot for big-game shooting.] .