INTOXICATED PILOT.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 182, 3 August 1929, Page 9

INTOXICATED PILOT.

PRISON FOR FLYING-OFFICER. LONDON, August 2. Flying-Officer Thomas was tried by court-martial and sentenced to one year's imprisonment for drunkenness while making an unauthorised landing between Henslow and Eastchurch on May 3. : The evidence showed that he landed at Hendon, consumed liquor, and crashed after his departure. Aircraftsman Mason jumped out and was killed. The court-martial which' inquired into the circumstances of the crash at Barnet, Hertfordshire, on May 3, in which Aircraftman Mason, a passenger, was killed, was concluded at Henlow aerodrome, Bedfordshire, on June 22, Group-Captain R. C. M. Pink presided. Fiying-Officer Denys Stanley Thomas, the pilot, was charged with flying in a manner likely to cause loss' of life, with flying too low, making an unauthorised , flight,, and being intoxicated. Flying-Officers Thompson, W. E. Simmons, and H. <T. Young, all of Hendon, said Flying-Officer Thomas was sober when he left Hendon. Flying-Officer Young said it was possible that Thomas had drunk nine glasses of brown ale and one of gin at the mess. The court found Flying Officer Thomas not guilty on the charge of low flying. The sentence in the other three charges has now been promulgated,