Planes Crash on Links

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 491, 22 October 1928, Page 9

Planes Crash on Links

Woman Pilot Badly Hurt

GOLFERS WATCH AGHAST

(United P.A. —By Telegraph Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Received 11.50 a.m. LONDON, Sunday. TWO airplanes have crashed on golf courses, one with * serious results, for the woman pilot was seriously injured.

A Moth plane crashed on a new golf course at Mote Mount, Milhall, while play was in progress. The amateur golfers C. J. Tolley and R. H. Wethered were opposing the professionals Abe Mitchell and C. Whitcombe, in a foursomes match at the opening of the new course and were approaching the ninth hole when the attention of the spectators was attracted to a Moth plane, which was circling overhead in a boisterous wind. Suddenly the engine stopped and the plane spun downwards. The pilot made desperate efforts to regain control. The plane nose-dived from a height of 300 feet, and crashed on the sixth tee. The players flung down their clubs and joined the spectators in a rush to the plane. They found two women in the wreckage. One was Miss Sicele> O’Brien (daughter of Sir Timothy O’Brien), who was the second Englishwoman to obtain a commercial aviation certificate. She was unconscious with a leg fractured and one foot nearly torn oft.

Miss O’Brien’s pupil, the Hon. M. K. Leith, daughter of the late Lord Burgh, was severely cut in the body and face. The golfers assisted the spectators to drag out the women, and a man seized the petrol tank, which was broken off and leaking, and carried it to a distance, which prevented the danger of fire. The suffering women were taken to hospital, where Miss O’Brien’s leg was amputated at the knee The bystanders pay a tribute to the airwomen’s pluck. When Miss O’Brien was placed in the ambulance, in spite of her pain she asked the extent of Miss Leith’s injuries. FELL LIKE A STONE Ronald C. A. Decott, of the Lancashire Aero Club, after a morning round of golf with William Ramsden, took up Ramsden on a promised flight. The machine began to loop the loop, the golfers stopping play to watch. They were struck aghast when they saw the airplane spin and fall like a stone to the ground, where 'it was wrecked. They dragged out the occupants, who shortly recovered from their experience.