Fatal Crash Mars R.A.F. African Flight

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 616, 19 March 1929, Page 9

Fatal Crash Mars R.A.F. African Flight

TWO OFFICERS KILLED CAPE-TO-CAIRO RETURN (United F.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) Reed. 10.10 u.rn. CAPETOWN, Monday. A Royal Air Force airplane crashed when taking off at Gwelo, Rhodesia. Her pilot and a passenger were killed. This is the first fatality during British flights at the Cape. A British Official Wireless message says that those who were killed in the crash of one of the four FairevNapier Royal Air Force airplanes, after leaving Gwelo, in Southern Rhodesia, were Sergeant Turner, who was killed on the spot, and Flying-Officer Burnett, "who died from his injuries soon after admission to hospital. The four planes, under the command of Squadron-Leader Cox, left Caon February 12, and reached Capetown last Thursday week, thus completing the first half of their 9,000mile flight in scheduled time. They were being accompanied back to Nairobi and Khartoum by four machines of the South African Air Force.

AMERICA’S WORST CRASH FOURTEEN LIVES LOST A DREADFUL DISASTER (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) NEW YORK, Monday. Tlie worst tragedy in the history of heavier-than-air craft in the United States occurred yesterday near Newark, New Jersey. Fourteen lives were lost in a crash. Fifteen passengers had paid £1 each for a trip in a metal airplane, which had been christened Miss Newark by Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, wife of the ex-President. The pilot was a well-known flyer, Louis Foote, formerly of the Ford aviation fleet, who had previously made a flight in the machine. With his 15 passengers on board Foote took off for the second flight. As the machine was rising from the ground is crashed into a freight car. MACHINE WRECKED The engines of the airplane failed and the pilot was compelled to make a forced landing. The impact wrecked the machine and all on board were killed except Mr. Belmont Parsons, of Brooklyn, and the pilot. They were injured but are expected to recover. The two men escaped death because they were seated in the twin pilot’s seat, four feet above the cabin. The latter was reduced to a tangled mass of steel and human bodies. The three massive 220 horse-power Wright-Whirl wind motors in the airplane were hurled 50 feet away from the scene of the crash.