CRASH TO DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 213, 9 September 1935, Page 7

CRASH TO DEATH.

SUN CAUSES TRAGEDY. Blinded Pilot Collides With Another 'Plane. THREE DEAD AT BLACKPOOL. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, September 8. Thousands of holidayniakers at Blackpool were horrified spectatoi-s of a collision in mid-air which resulted in the pilot of one aeroplane and two women passengers, Misses Dorothy and Lilian Barnes, sisters, who were keenly interested in flying, being killed. Five aeroplanes belonging to Sir Alan Cobham's "circus" took off for a display of formation flying. While climbing, Captain Stewart, formerly of the Canadian Air Force, piloting an Avro, was presumably blinded by the sun, and passed under a three-engined monoplane, the port propeller of which struck the Avro, slicing off its tail. The forepart of the Avro crashed on the roof of a house in a busy shopping centre, and slid off amid a cloud of dust and debris, scattering the bystanders. Men dragged out Captain Stewart in a dying condition, and Miss Dorothy Barnes, dead. Miss Lilian Barnes was catapulted from the machine and f>3ll in a street several hundred yards distant. The tail of the aeroplane crashed on the roof of a parish church, narrowly missing a group watching the disaster. The monoplane was not damaged.

Sir Alan Cobham, expressing regret at the tragedy, said that such a type of accident would happen only once in a million times. "It was our first accident with a passenger, although we have carried 750,000 in five years," added Sir Alan.