AIRMAN’S DILEMMA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 108, 16 February 1935, Page 2

AIRMAN’S DILEMMA.

LANDING IN A RIVER. Rather than land in a London street and risk killing several people, an airman who found that he had .run out of petrol came down in the Thames near Westminster. No one was hurt, the machine was salvaged andi the pilot escaped without even getting wet. He is Mr Bartholomew Tonge, aged 27, of Dundee, who is employed at a Broxbourne aerodrome, in Hertfordshire. He was returning alone from Cambridge when the thick fog made him decide to land at Croydon. Then, while over Westminster, he found that his petiol tank was practically empty. “I knew I had to land urgently,’ Mr Tonge went on. “I circled round over the Tate Gallery for a, while and made put some premises that had been demolislied at the back of the gallery* I had almost decided to come down there when I say’ the lights of a tug on the

river. . . “I followed the light until it had reached a spot where X thought landing was possible. It was a good landing. I climbed along the fuselage to keep the tail down and prevent the machine from getting low in the water and then when the_tug came near I climbed on board.

“The tug was the Charloc and its master is Captain Tom Wagliorn. Flight-Lieutenant Shaw and M. L- S. MacLeod, 'of Croydon aerodrome, were passing in a car as I was flying oyer the river, and they. immediately got into a rowing-boat and came to my assistance.”