'PLANES CRASH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 136, 11 June 1934, Page 3

'PLANES CRASH.

CAUSED BY THE SUN.

HEAD-ON COLLISION. NEW ZEALANDER'S DEATH. Four airmen—two R.A.F. officers and two cadets—were killed instantly on May 1 near Cranwell (Lines), the "Sandhurst" of the Air Force, when two machines crashed in head-on collision. The dead are: Flight-Lieutenant J. S. Tanner, Flying-Officer 1). J. Douthwaite, Flight-Cadet J. Askell-Rutherford, FlightC'adet A. J. Plugge (Taupiri, New Zealand). An officer and a cadet were in each of the aeroplanes engaged in training flights. It is believed that the disaster was caused by brilliant sun "blinding" the pilots, who were thus unable to see each other until it was too late. The collision occurred at an altitude of about /500 ft in a lonely area live miles from Cranwell. The wings of the aeroplanes were ripped off, and before the two machines landed in two fields about 150 yards apart they had split into many pieces. Parachutes Fail. One of the men pulled the rip cord of his parachute, but owing to the low altitude at which the collision occurred, there was not sufficient time to prevent his being dashed to death. He landed in a tree. The three other bodies were found with their parachutes still strapped to tlieni. The men had bqen hurled to death so rapidly that they had no time to save themselves. Mr. R. Godsniark. a farm manager on the Earl of Londesborough's estate, near Sleaford, was the first to arrive on the scene of the disaster. "I hoard a terrific explosion," he said to a "Daily Express" representative, "and saw two aeroplanes hurtling towards the ground. Engines Buried. "When I reached the spot, which is about half a miie from the * LincolnSleaford Road, I found that underneath one of the machines were two bodies. On going over to the other wreckage there were two more bodies. The machines had crashed to the ground nose-first, and the engines were embedded in the soil to a considerable depth. An ambulance was soon on the scene, and the bodies were removed to Cranwell." Flight-Lieutenant Tanner's home was in Lincolnshire; Flying-Officer Douthwaite was a Londoner; Cadet AskeliRutlierford came from Bedfordshire; and Cadet Plugge from New Zealand. This was the sixth R.A.F. accident this year. Eleven airmen have been killed. It was the first quadruple accident since February, 1933, when four airmen lost their lives at Wexcombe, Wilts.