AIR SQUADRON LOST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 296, 14 December 1936, Page 8

AIR SQUADRON LOST.

I Fog Causes Disaster in Flight in | Yorkshire. THREE AIRMEN KILLED. LONDON, December 13. * Fog caused a disaster to-day when i seven Heyford bombers forming the No. 5 102 Bombing Squadron were flying from I Aldergrove to Finningley, Yorkshire, j Which only one machine reached. f Of the remainder one crashed with ! the loss of three lives on a rifle-range • at Hebbenbridge, Yorkshire, where the ! villagers found a dazed airman, Pilot- ' Sergeant Otter, with bleeding face aiid « tunic on fire, stumbling through the mist. | The pilot said he had lost his beart ings and the ice-coated wings caused the 5 aeroplane to strike a steep ascent while ! he was looking for a landing place. The 5 machine was found in a mass of flames - fln( i two occupants were already incin- | erated. A third had received fatal burns < and died before he reached hospital. : Two of the other aeroplanes made i forced landings in Cheshire. One reached k the ground safely but the other toie through a hedge and two sets of iron railings, knocked down a telegraph pole and,then buried its nose in the ground. ; The three occupants had narrow escapes Jrom injury. x A fifth bomber also lost its direction and circled above Oldham when engine trouble developed. The four occupants landed safely in parachutes except the pilot, who broke a leg. The marline °.aiiie down in flames. The remaining Vwo aeroplanes made forced landings in ither districts. . Thja«.is the Royal Air Force's 51sfc accident in 1936 and the total death- , roll is 93. 1