KILLED INSTANTLY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 364, 27 October 1932, Page 5

KILLED INSTANTLY

FINDING OF THE BODIES Wellington, Wednesday. In making a search for the 'plane, Squadron-Leader G. L. Stedman, left the. Rongotai 'drome by air at 5.20 this morning, and having a good idea of where the airmen would be, flew straight to the spot where they were found. Clouds were lying on the hills, but these lifted temporarily and he saw the sun reflected from the wings of the 'plane, making the discovery about ten minutes after leaving Rongotai. He returned at once, and soon was on his way back to Tawa Flat in a Wellington free ambulance, which was left on the main road, the party proceeding to the wreck on foot. It took about an hour to reach it over hilly grass country. They found the machine totally wrecked. Both men had been thrown clear, but apparently had been killed instantly. A watch on one of them had stopped at 3.35. The bodies were conveyed to the ambulance and so to the city morgue. The place where the wreck lies is the very top of a grass ridge close to Colonial Knob, which is 1540 feet high. It is sunnised that the airmen, on reaching Tawa Flat, found the hills between them and Wellington enveloped in clouds, and after trying to pass over Johnsonville turned baqk and headed for the coast. Clouds covered about two hundred feet of the high hills separating- Tawa Flat from; the coast, and the machine just failed to clear the crest of the ridge where ; it was found.