AIR TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 March 1940, Page 5

AIR TRAGEDY

DEATH OF SQUADRON-LEADER ALLAN. AN UNEXPLAINED MYSTERY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND. March 12. In the instructional flight in which he fell to his death from an altitude of 3,000 feet near Mangere Aerodrome this morning. Squadron-Leader D. M. Allan occupied the back cockpit of an open Tiger Moth machine. Acting-Pilot Officer G. H. Newton was in front. After flying for some time at about 2000 feet, and carrying out various evolutions, the pilot took the craft to 3000 feet approximately, and performed a slow roll manoeuvre, in which the aeroplane flies onward, turning slowly into an inverted position, and continuing to fly upright again. The manoeuvre was performed when the Tiger Moth was over open country near Black Bridge, about two miles from the aerodrome, and it was while the machine was inverted that Squadron Leader Allan fell.

It is reported that he was wearing shoulder harness when he took off, but no official statement has been made as to whether the harness failed or how an officer thoroughly used to inverted flying fell from the machine. According to reports, the junior pilot did not see Squadron-Leader Allan fall, and first realised that something untoward had happened when he received no reply to questions asked through the speaking tube, and when the machine suddenly became noseheavy.

Realising suddenly that he was alone in the ah; Acting-Pilot Officer Newton took over the controls in the front cockpit and returned to Mangere. A local resident, Mr A. Ford, was working across the road about 200 yards distant, said he saw the machine flying at various altitudes. He thought it would be fully 200 feet up when a peculiar whistling noise attracted his attention. It was followed almost immediately by a heavy thud, and he concluded that some object had been dropped from the plane in the course of some new training. He said he remarked to a neighbour that something had fallen from the machine, but thought nothing more of the incident till he saw the ambulance arrive. At that time the machine was flying in a curve and heading toward the aerodrome. Two officers from Hobsonville AitBase later flew to Mangere aerodrome and inspected the machine. An official inquiry will be held. On the outbreak of the Great War Squadron-Leader Allan was in South America, but he speedily qualified as a pilot, with the Royal Air Force and. holding lhe rank of lieutenant, was engaged in instructional work in mach-ine-gunnery and aerial fighting at Eastchurch and Hounslow. He was ready to go overseas in the Salamanda Squadron when the Armistice was declared. He was then posted lo the Nucleus Flight, London Colony, as instructor till. April, 1919, with the rank of Flight Commander, when he was demobilised. After demobilisation. SquadronLeader Allan returned to New Zealand and for some years acted as manager of a Hawke’s Bay sheep station. Before his appointment to the position of instructor to the Auckland Aero Club in 1929 he was a prominent member of the Hawke's Bay Aero Club.