AMAZING ESCAPE

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 291, 21 November 1936, Page 6 (Supplement)

AMAZING ESCAPE

PILOT AND WIFE AEROPLANE LOSES ENGINE. TEN-MILLION TO-ONE CHANCE. This is the story of the most remarkable escape from death record'd in aviation, writes Victor Burnett m urn Sunday Express, London. Major R. A. Thornton, a wellknown airman, took off from Budapest in his monoplane to fly to Hainburg. He was flying the machine from the back cockpit. In the froqt cockpit, just behind the engine, sat his wife. The weather was good; the engine was running perfectly. Suddenly there was a faint bang. Major Thornton looked up and forward to the engine. Then he gasped. There was no engine! The aircraft ended in a jagged tear just beyond the front cockpit. His wife, in front of him, found herself with her feet actually dang-* ling in space. Both pilot and passenger gave up all hope ot surviving the accident. Major Thornton wrestled with the controls. Nothing happened. The monoplane flew level for an instant and then si began to heel over. Its nose, released from the weight of the engine, rose in the air. Then, losing flying speed, the machine stalled and went over into a flatfish spin. "I didn’t feel frightened,” said the pilot. "I just felt silly and helpless.” At every second both Major and Mrs. Thornton expected the nose of the machine to point straight toward the earth and crash in a high-speed spinning dive. But the dive did not start. The spin did not increase its speed. Then the undercarriage brushed the tree tops. The passengers held mi. The aircraft hit the ground with a slight bump. Major and Mrs. Thornton climbid out, bruised. They found the missing engine near. The propeller had imashed and the vibration had torn the engine out of the aeroplane. But their escape is a mystery. Designers say it is a ten-million-to-on? ■hance.