FATAL NOSEDIVE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 171, 22 July 1930, Page 7

FATAL NOSEDIVE.

SHOCKING TRAGEDY.

Naval Officer and Lady Flyer

Killed.

ILL-FATED FAMILY.

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

LONDON, July 21. A shocking double flying fatality occurred near Maidstone.

After having /visited a relative at Chatham by air, Naval-Lieutenant S. E. N. Spencer, a keen flyer, accompanied by Miss Gladys Grace, a daughter of Admiral H. E. Grace and a granddaughter of the late Dr. W. G. Grace, the famous cricketer, took off from Delting aerodrome in Lieutenant Spencer's two-seater aeroplane, which he piloted.

They circled around, looped the loop once and were doing so again when the machine nosedived from a low altitude, crashed and burst into flames.

Both occupants were burned to death. Miss Grace's brother-in-law, Commander Worthington, and his wife, witnessed the crash. They ran to the aeroplane, but were driven back by sheets of flame.

Miss Grace was 20 years of age and was an excellent pilot. She narrowly cscaped death in March when a machine in which she was flying crashed near Hamble after a nosedive from a height of 2000 ft. She was severely injured, but recovered and resumed flying.

The ill-fated girl's sister, Miss Bessie Grace, liad crashed at the same spot in 1928, but was not badly hurt.