EIGHT KILLED IN AMAZING AIR CRASH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 209, 5 September 1938, Page 9

EIGHT KILLED IN AMAZING AIR CRASH.

TWENTY-FIVE HURT.

'Plane Crashes Into Houses,

Causing Fire.

CHILDREN AMONG DEAD

***** Press Association.—Copyright,

(Received 11 a.m.)

LONDON, September 4.

Eight people were killed and 25 injured, and three houses were set on tire when an Air Force aeroplane crashed on top of a residence at fcdmonton and burst into flames It then bounced on to houses across the road, on which the petrol tank exploded as pedestrians scattered

Those killed instantly were the pilot, a woman and two children, one of whom was killed on the road.

The crash later claimed another victim. One is an unidentified woman who died in hospital. Edward Letch succumbed in hospital, makuig the sixth victim. His brother James, and V,i others, including Mr launders and his son, Koy, whose" house wa? completely destroyed, and five Callaghans, occupants of an adjoining dwelling, which was badly damaged, were in a critical condition. The son, Koy, died later. John Eusden. is the seventh victim. He succumbed from burns received when saving others, and the eighth was Koy baunders. People Blazing Like Torches. The rescuers did not spare themselves in attempting to extinguish the petrolsonked clothing of men, women and children, fleeing from the inferno, blazing like torches. Hundreds o? children were playing in a nearby pane and saw the crash. A boy, Jimmy Taut, was killed as the machine bounced across the road after nose-diving on to the roof of his parents' house. It struck a pair of houses opposite, in one of which a family named Saunders was having lunch, strewing wreckage in the garden and flinging the engine into an adjacent doorway. This ignited the building, fatally burning Mrs. Saunders and her son, Derek, aged eight, and severely burning the husband arid two other children, also a boy scout, who had entered to give help, and neighbours who were met by a blast of flame after rushing from their dwellings. The 'plane was piloted by Sergeant S. R. Morris.