PARACHUTE JUMP

DANGEROUS LANDING

GLASS ROOF JUST AVOIDED

EXCITEMENT AT DOMAIN

RESULT OF STRONG WIND

Jumping from an aeroplane when it was only 1000 ft. above the Auckland Domain on Saturday morning, the well-known parachutist, Mr. G. W. Sellars, had a narrow escape from serious injury when he was able to s\\av his parachute just in time to avoid crashing through the jilass roof of part of the Winter Garden. As it was lie landed heavily on a small garden plot alongside a concrete path and jarred himself considerably. The jump was arranged as part of a Father Christmas gift distribution for children that had been organised bv a prominent Auckland firm. Mr. Sellars was to land on the outer Domain as Father Christmas and was then to assist with the distribution of the toys on the ground. Blown by Wind The parachutist was taken up in an aeroplane piloted by Flight-Lieutenant D. M. Allan and made his jump when the machine was at an altitude of only 1000 ft., in order to give the children an'additional excitement. The aeroplane was so low that the spectators, of whom there were several thousand on the banks near by, were able to distinguish the figure of the parachutist very clearly as he stopd on the wing before jumping off.

There was a fairly strong southwesterly wind at 1000 ft. and this immediately blew Mr. Sellars from the direction he intended to take. Then, as he came down into the shelter of the surrounding trees the still air caused him to drop more quickly and he landed very heavily. Landing on Garden While the parachute was falling Mr. Sellars could be seen vigorously attempting to counteract the effect of the wind and so land on the level ground. He obviously saw the danger of falling into the Winter Garden and fought to swing the parachute away from it. Until he was within a few yards of the roof, however, it seemed almost certain that he was going to fall in the glass and it was only in the last few seconds that he was able to escape it. He then disappeared from the view of the spectators and fell into a garden patch between the two hothouses. Only a few moments before, two gardeners had been bedding plants there, and by the time Mr. Sellars had disentangled himself from the parachute and hundreds of children and adults had dashed up to see what had happened, the garden was almost wrecked. Mr. Sellars meanwhile had found that his Father Christmas beard had been twisted awry by the fall, and limped into shelter to fix it before returning to assist with the gift distribution, which he did, in spite of his nerve-racking experience.