AIR TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 18 November 1929, Page 5

AIR TRAGEDY

DIVE INTO SEA

(Australian Press Association)

SYDNEY, Nov, 17.

The Automobile Club’s races at the Seven Mile Beach at Kiama were .marred by a tragedy yesterday afterno 1 when a Moth plane crashed,in the surf. The pilot, Jesse O’Connor, and a passenger, William Berg, a “Daily, Guardian” photographer, "fas taking' ..pictures of the nujes, bpth drowned- • , i

The plane nosedived several hundred feet just outside,the breakers. Rescuers swum, out n/nd found Berg’s body near the plane, which Was badly';; smashed, the. , engine being wrenched'clear of tlie fdselage. O’Connor’s' body was. not seen, though it is possible it became' entangled in tlie machine. Several of the rescuers were badly knocked about in' a rough surf. CAUSE OF THE TRAGEDY. h 'SYDNEY, Nov; 17. Captain Holderi,' who witnessed the plane accident at Seven . Mile Beach, said that evidently the engine stall'cd, oWirig tb the' plane’s slow air' speed. P’ildt O’Cohnor was an experienced lit. an. He was popular with airmen.' '•O’Cottnar’s fiancee witnesiied the smash. Berg was widely known.' His greatest achievement was when he'journeyed to Alice Springs to recover the bodies of Anderson and Hitchcock, who perished while searching for the Southern Cross. He ’Was the first cameraman,to penetrate into the heart oi thb' 'North. Australia desert 1 country. He was also the first press photograph-. *r to meet his death,while covering an assignment' in an aeroplane. He had just "bought a: car to go on a holiday -with his wife'.

;'BODY RECOVERED. rtleceived this dnv at 12.25. p.mA SYDNEY, November 18. Connor’s body was recovered at Seven Mile Bench on Sunday.