LADY HEATH CRASHES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 755, 30 August 1929, Page 1

LADY HEATH CRASHES

Famous Flyer Badly Injured PLANE EMBEDDED ON ROOF (United P.A. —By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z S. Press Association) (United Service) Received 11 a,m. CLEVELAND (Ohio), Thursday. LADY HEATH, the famous British airwoman, was seriously injured today, when her airplane crashed into a factory and became embedded in the roof. Her skull was fractured, and probably she has internal injuries.

Workmen released Lady Heath with difficulty from the cockpit, and she was taken to hospital. The doctors later said she was in a very serious condition, with her skull fractured in several places. She had participated in the United States Women’s Air Derby, "which was concluded the other day. Now in her thirties, Lady Heath, who was formerly Mrs. Elliott Lynn, is married to Sir James Heath, the 75-year-old ironmaster and coalowner. Few modern women have been so much in the public eye of recent months. She won fame for herself by intrepid feats of flying; her husband won for her more public attention, when he advertised in America repudiating her debts. “She goes through money like water,” he once said. • Lady Heath has been Lady Bailey’s keenest air rival. They once took part in an adventurous and hazardous race from the Cape to Cairo. In May, 1928, she flew to Croydon from Capetown after a flight in -which she established several records as follow: First woman to fly through Africa; first light ’plane flight from Capetown to Cairo; first solo crossing from the Cape to Cairo; and first woman to fly from the Cape to England. She has piloted an air liner from Amsterdam to Croydon, and in 1927, with a passenger, attained a height of 19,000 ft, •which equalled the record set up previously by Lady Bailey. This she eclipsed -on October 4, 1928, when she broke the Erit.ish solo altitude record at Croydon,. attaining a height of 23,000 feet—more than four miles —in a Cirrus Moth light ’plane. The previous Britich. official height record was one of 20,000 feet, made by Captain G. de Haviland. The greatest

unofficial recorded height in England was attained just after the war in a D.H. Napier bombing 'plane by Captain N. Lang, who reached 30,000 feet

—or nearly six miles high. Ascending from Croydon at 11.55 a..m, Lady Heath was one hour seven minutes in reaching her maximum altitude, but it only took her ten minutes to dive back to earth. “It was intensely cold at 23,000 feet,” Lady Heath stated on alighting, “but I enjoyed myself. At 22,000 feet frost formed on my goggles The intense cold threatened to stop my engines, otherwise I would ha e gone much higher. The visibility was wonderful, and I could see the French coast. I was sorry to come down.' “The two outstanding sensations,” she added, “were the loneliness of flying by oneself thousands of feet above ground, and the exhilarating effect of the pure air. Although one is fully occupied in flying a machine, watching instruments, and listening to the running of the engine, this feeling of exhilaration is paramount.”