BRITISH & FOREIGN ITEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 14 July 1921, Page 3

BRITISH & FOREIGN ITEMS

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION

HAWKER'S END. (Received This Day at 9.40 a.i».) LONDON, July iJHendon Fire Brigade happened to be returning from Heath fire* due to the drought and they saw the aeroplane u flames. The firemen, leaving their engine hurried to the field where the aeroplane crashed. They found the avi-,-t ator dying and later identified him as Hawker. . . An officer of the Fire Brigade says Hawker seemed in difficulties when high in the air and apparently determined to "V land in a field 1} miles from Hendon, I instead of attempting to reach the ae reft drome. As the machine got nearer, however he must have seen the people in the field' and tried to avoid them. In doing so the machine began to spin and then sway from side to side and the petrol tank burst into flames, whe: about two hundred yards from the ground where it crashed. The burning aeroplane set the dry grass ablaze. Hawker had fallen one hundred yards from the blazing machine. The grass scorched but did not burn him. A doctor and the firemen rushed to his ' rescue and beat out the flames in the grass, but Hawker died without regaining consciousness, ten minutes after his fall. Other observers, however, assert that they saw flames when Hawker was six thousand feet up. Hawker was a man who constantly gambled with death. His friends called him “the man who won’t be killed.” Me was a lifelong teetotaller and nonsmoker and always had perfect control of his nerves. He leaves a widow and daughter.