AIR-LINER CRASH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 80, 5 April 1943, Page 5

AIR-LINER CRASH

REMARKABLE ESCAPE

ACCIDENT NEAR AERODROME (0.C.) SYDNEY, March 23. Twelve passengers remarkably escaped injury when a Douglas airliner crashed a few minutes after leaving an aerodrome at 6 a.m. on Thursday for Sydney. The plane was wrecked. Both engines were torn out of it, one landing 100 yards from the wreck, with both propellers crumpled. And the crew's compartment, as photographs showed, was crumpled up like a concertina. Yet not only did the passengers escape with a shaking, but the crew of three came out of the accident alive, although severefy injured. The passengers were 10 army officers and two civilians. The crew were Captain D. E. Barker, of Kew, Melbourne, who suffered a compound fracture of the leg; First Officer L. H. Grant, also of Victoria, second pilot, compound fracture of the skull; and Air Hostess Veni Vernon, of St. Kilda, Melbourne, lacerations to the thigh and scalp. The crash occurred in rough country, two miles from the aerodrome. The pilot evidently sought to avoid crashing into high-tension wires. The plane hit the ground and bounded over a fence. It broke in half near the passenger door as it hit the ground again. An eye-witness of the crash, Mr. John Daly, farm manager, said the plane flew over his home at an altitude of 150 ft to 200 ft.

"The engines were labouring and the plane was losing height quickly," he said. "Over a row of trees I saw its tail go up as its nose dipped. There was a booming thud as it struck the earth.

"I ran to the spot and found soldiers and civilian passengers staggering about, with blood on their hands and faces and their clothes torn. A 200-yard furrow was torn in the ground by one propeller blade. A fence post was snapped c.ean off by one of the plane's wings. Oil was splashed over the plane, but fortunately it did not catch fire."