AIR LINER TRAGEDY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5126, 16 May 1927, Page 1

AIR LINER TRAGEDY.

STRANGE ACTION BY PASSENGER. HURLS HIMSELF FROM MACHINE. For the first time in the history of commercial aviation a man travelling by one of the European air lineis lost his mental balance and hurled himself through the doorway when the machine was flying at a height of several thousand feet. The air. liner in question fli.es between Tolosa and Casablanca, and had on board a fair number of passengers.

When near Alicante, in Spain, one of the passengers, a Frenchman, began to act strangely, but no one suspected the tragedy that actually followed. He made his way to the doorway of the machine, looking out into space. He stood there for. some little time.

Then quite suddenly, and without any warning, he jumped out. It was impossible to stop the machine and effect a landing, but at the first place of call the police were notified, and a search was made for the body, which was eventually found near the spot where the man made it is fatal leap.

It subsequently transpired that the unfortunate man had lost a big sum of money at Monte Carlo. This had evidently preyed on his mind, but he showed no evidence of it when he took his seat in the air liner, and it was not until well on the- way that his strange behaviour attracted any attention. Even then it was not thought necessary to- put him under restraint in any way.