DIVE INTO SEA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 273, 28 August 1948, Page 2

DIVE INTO SEA

Two Airmen Killed

TEST FLIGHT FROM 0 HAKE A

(P.A.) PALMERSTON N., Aug. 27. Plunging at a terrific speed into the sea about half a mile from the shore at Himatangi this morning, a Mosquito aircraft from Oliakea on a test flight, and authorised to do low flying, was completely wrecked.

The pilot, Flight Lieutenant George Ronald Simich, D.F.C. and Polish Cross aged 22, and his companion, Flight Sergeant Victor Horton Baird, a litter, aged 28, were killed instantly. The accident occurred at 9.‘10 a.m.. and by midday debris from the wrecked machine was ■ strewn along the beach for a distance of 200 yards. Although the bodies were not recovered, fragments of human remains fund among the wreckage indicated clearly the fate of the crew. No information is available as to the cause of the accident. Eye witnesses detected nothing amiss with the behaviour of the aircraft before its plunge. A resident at Himatangi beach in a telephone interview with a reporter in Wellington said the aircraft had been circling the beach. It had completed a victory roll and attempted another. . , , . “We de not know precisely what happened, but the nose suddenly dived down,” the man said. “There was a big white cloud of sprajj from the sea, and we heard a terrific bump. The aircraft disintegrated.” The machine crashed fairly close to the shove, but nobody actually saw it hit the sea. By 1.30 p.m. one body, believed to be that of the pilot, had been recovered, and residents were keeping a watch for the second body. An inquiry will be held. Flight Lieutenant Simich was a son of Mr and Mrs Marin Simich, of Orntia, near Auckland. Educated at Sacred . Heart College and Auckland University College, lie joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force shortly after the outbreak of war. and trained in New Zealand. He left for Britain in July, 1940, and served with the famous No. 75 (New Zealand) bomber squadron based in Britain. He was awarded the D.F.C. in July, 194 k, and mentioned in dispatches in June ot the following year. A month later he was shot down m a bomber over Germany, and was taken prisoner. He was liberated m 1945 and returned to New Zealand in December of that year. He recently married an Australian, who was a W.A.A.F.