AIR LINER’S CRASH

Hokitika Guardian, 17 April 1929, Page 6

AIR LINER’S CRASH

THIRTEEN PAi&EN GEE'S KILLER

SAN FRANCISCO, March ‘2O

Imprisoned hopelessly, twelve men and a woman watched death rush toward them for two or three terrible minutes and then were killed when a giant sight-seeing aeroplane crashed against a freight car at the edge of Newark Meadows, in New Jersey, at C o’clock at night. The failure of the left wing motoi, with a capacity load of precious human lives, forced the landing that resulted in the worst air disaster in the history of flying in Eastern United States.

Tiie great tri-inotored flying train, christened “‘Miss Newark” by MrCalvin Coolidge recently, was the same craft in which fourteen terrified sight-seers were marooned over Noward airport for half an hour on the previous day. because the .motors could not buck the wind and effect a landing. The only survivors of the catastrophe were I,on Foote, former “ace” of the Ford flying fleet, who piloted tiie last flight of the Miss Newark, and Belmont Parson. 2-">. of Brooklyn, a friend of Foote. Parsons subsequently died. They escaped instant death, ami were hurled clear because they were seated in tin*, twill pilots’ seat, four feet above the cabin, which was torn lrom its wings in a tangled mass of steel. A single piereng cadenza of death was screamed from thirteen in the cabin as they were ground against the. tangled steal and send I vded ii the car on the Central Railway ol New Jersey tracks, about “C'lßft north of Wilson Avenue in Newark. Foote and I)is friend, who managed to clear the sand bulwark, as the cabin ground itself against it. suffered fractured skulls. |

Snapped off like oarlocks From a

bnmphing dinghy, tlio tlirce massive motors were thrown fifty feet from the twisted'and torn juggernaut of death.

A GAY PARTY

Several of the passengers wore employees of the North-Western • Mutual Life Insurance Company on an excursion and they made the flight a gay community party, with everybody chaffing everyone else about fear and this and that. After taxi-ing the full length of the airport the Miss Newark only managed to clear the viaduct of the State highway by about fifty feet. “Gee, they must be getting a thrill out of flying so low,” one of those who watched the take-off said. A woman nearby was complaining that she had motored all the way from Trenton for a flight, and that she had just missed the Miss Newark’s last trip for the day.

Slipping lower, it seemed the Miss Newark nosed back to Newark airport after having been out about ten miles. Spectators became frightened then. The ’plane dropped to 200 ft, and it was clear tin t Foote, sensing his desperate plight, intended to try for a forced landing r.n the muddy and half-submerged strut of Newark Meadows across the railway tracks from the Oak Island yards.

The port motor died sudden'.v —the motor Foote had been depending on to aid him in clearing the tracks wi,..

their perilous array of freight cars u., well as trains in motion. MISSED BY TWO FEET. ■

He was cutting his landing very fine, because, unless lie hit the meadows 1 at the extreme end he certainly would have taxied into a crash at the far end of the Stretch. By two feet the veteran pilot missed and the ear mowed down the big ship.

First on the scene of the disaster were Engineer John Primine and Conductor John Kane, of a passing freight train. They found Foote climbing to his feet babbling and chattering incoherently. Lifting Parsons they piled them both into the cob of their freight engine and sped to Wilson crossing, Newark, where an ambulance was waiting.

“It was useless to do anything for the others,” Kane said simply, as he descrived the scene of horror at the wreck of the ’plane. An ambulance rushed the injured pair to St. James’ Hospital, where the young and pretty Mrs Foote, summoned from her home at the Park Lane Hotel, Newark, was robbing hysterically. She was not told that her husband was not expected to 'ive as she rushed to his bedside. She Mended with him to recognise her, but Foote’s only words were:. “They quit 1 I'hey quit!” Apparently he was talking about the motors of the ’plane. About 5.10 o’clock, according to Clayton Hopkins, Newark motor cycle policeman, the ’plane appeared above the salt meadows, about a mile north >f the flynig field. The pilot appeared to be fighting to keep the ’plane in the air until he could find a suitable spot for a forced landing. With the ex.eption of roadways and railway tracks die ground for several miles about was marshy and mostly covered with water. A quarter of a mile past tlie railway spur there was a stretch of •solid ground. Foote had apparently spotted this as a landing place, but either the wind or disabled motors forced him down when the ’plane was directly over the track?. Hopkins sped towards the scene on iiis motor cycle, but when he arrived the 7 plane was a heap of debris scattered about a half-filled sand car. It had struck the car nose-on, the impact demolishing the passenger-filled cabin and tearing the aeroplane apart. The cwo men in the pilot’s cockpit were thrown clear of the wreckage, but the passengers m the snug, enclosed cabin did not have a chance. Two of the victims were brother and sister. The young woman’s fiancee, Reginald D. Woodward, also was killed, and their lifeless arms were clasped about each other in the wreckage. Physicians estimated that all thirteen passengers in the lower cabin were dead within 30 seconds after the huge ’plane rammed into the steel freight car, and fell into two pieces. Foote was a most experienced airman, having been a pilot for ten years, with a total of 2000 hours in the air and 2-30 hours in the type of ’plane in which he barely escaped death.