CRASHED IN FLAMES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1030, 22 July 1930, Page 1

CRASHED IN FLAMES

TWO LIVES LOST IN TRAGEDY NEAR MAIDSTONE WERE LOOPING, THE LOOP LONDON, Sunday. A shocking double flying fatality occurred near Maidstone. After having visited a relative at Chatham by air. Lieutenant S. E. N. Spencer, R.N., a keen flier, accompanied by Miss Gladys Grace, a daughter of Admiral H. E. Grace, and a grand-daughter of the late Dr. W. G. Grace, the once famous cricketer, took off from Detling airdrome in Lieutenant Spencer’s two-seater airplane, which he piloted. They circled around, looped the loop once, and were doing so again when the machine nose-dived from a low altitude, crashed, and burst into flames. Both occupants were burned to death. Miss Grace’s brother-in-law, Commander Worthington, and his wife, witnessed the crash. They ran to the airplane, but were driven back by sheets of flame. Miss Grace was 26 years of age, and was an excellent pilot. She narrowly escaped death in March, when a machine in which she was flying crashed near Hamble after a nose-dive from a height of 2,000 feet. She was severely injured, but recovered, and resumed flyiug. The ill-fated gill’s sister. Miss Bessie Grace, had crashed at the same spot in 1928, but was not badly hurt.