CRASH IN THE AIR

Hokitika Guardian, 9 February 1931, Page 8

CRASH IN THE AIR

BIG SWAN AND MOTH PLANE. UNPRECEDENTED INCIDENT. SYDNEY, January 30. One of those unusual air incidents, almost unprecedented in Australia, in which an airman collided with a big bird in tiie air, occurred this week close to the Mascot aerodrome. Pilot Arthur Bostock, Hying a Moth ’plane, was returning to Mascot high over the Bunnerong sandhills. Observers noticed what Bostock failed to see a huge black swan flying at the same altitude on a diagonal course. With long neck outstretched the swan was travelling apparently at the same speed as the plane, and the observers calculated that if the swan did not diverge the two would meet at a spot over the sandhills.

The little drama took only a matter of seconds to reach its climax. It seemed that the big black swen saw the plane but refused to alter its course. Observers say they distinctly heat'd the bird’s “honk-honk” as it appeared to increase speed and rush headlong to the meeting. The watchers could almost bear the crash as the swan hit a wing of the plane, hung for a second in the air, and then side-slipped and rolled, at an amlazing pace towards the earth about 2000 feet below.

As though recovering suddenly the jswan spread his wings and steadied the fall for a second, then rolled over again and plunged straight into a Chinese market gardener’s pond. The watchers ran over, to the pond ■expecting to find the bird floating, dead. Instead, he was floating round preening his feathers, startled, but n<’t convinced. He is still there, perhaps recovering his strength so that he may try conclusions again with this strange fearsome air enemy.