DISASTROUS CRASH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 May 1938, Page 8

DISASTROUS CRASH

DURING BOMBING PRACTICE IN N.S.W. TWO KILLED AND THREE BADLY INJURED PLANE SMASHED IN TERRIFIC IMPACT By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. (Recd This Day, 11.10 a.m.) SYDNEY, May 29. An Air Force aeroplane with five occupants crashed at Greenhills Aerodrome, near Liverpool, this afternoon. Two are dead, two others critically injured, and the fifth with both legs broken has a chance of recovery. Air Force authorities are reticent and it is difficult to secure details. One of the known dead is Flight Lieutenant M. Allsop of the Vacuum Oil Company. The other is Corporal W. A. Lockwood. Injured are: Raymond Lawson, James Mackey, John Gordon. The three latter are in a critical condition with broken limbs and severe internal injuries. The machine was engaged in bombing practice. When apparently flying low or making a forced landing, it struck the ground and ploughed the earth for a considerable distance. It was smashed to atoms. The wreckage is distributed over five acres. One body was flung 70 yards. It is believed that some bombs exploded on the impact. All the occupants were members of the Citizens’ Air Force. The machine was an Avro-Anson bombing plane. Flight-Lieutenant Allsopp, 37, was pilot of the machine. He had charge of all fuelling arrangements in connection with the flight of the Southern Cross to New Zealand in 1933. Corporal W. A. Lockwood, aged 22, died after admission to hospital. The cause of the accident is unknown. Two of the injured men, Gordon and Mackey, told the doctors they did not know what happened.