AIRCRAFT CRASH IN SOUTHLAND

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25092, 25 January 1947, Page 6

AIRCRAFT CRASH IN SOUTHLAND

TWO MEN KILLED TRIP TO SUPPLY DEER CULLERS (P.A.) INVERCARGILL, Jan. 24. Two men suffered fatal injurief when a Percival Proctor aircraft owned by the Public Works Department crashed in the Grebe valley in rugged bush country, 12 miles from the head of Lake Monowai, early this morning. They were:— Oliver Anderson, pilot of the aircraft, and Peter Symonds, a passenger. The aeroplane, which was engaged in flying supplies from Lake Monowai to a Public works deer cullers’ camp on the Grebe river, left Blackmount» on the Tuatapere side of the lake, about 6 o’clock for Grebe valley. Full information about the accident hg« not been received, but it is thought that the engine of the aircraft cut out as it was -ascending after dropping.® U P' plies, and that the machine It was Mr Anderson’s secofid over the area, the supply service oeing a comparatively new one. M The accident was reported by William Deer, from the deer camp. Mr Deer discovered the wrecs age soon before “8 o’clock. . . A party led by Dr. W. B. Otautau, and Mr Mills, field officer ot. the Department of Internal Anairs. left for the scene of the accident, ana an ambulance was dispatched from me Southland Hospital. Both occupants ot the aircraft were dead when theparw arrived. Wreckage of the aeroplane was strewn for some distance, out there had been no fire. The Air Department at Wellington said this evening that the aircraft naa been reported missing this morning. A Royal New Zealand Air Force Hudson aircraft took off from Wigram, and « noon reported sighting the aircrait where it had crashed, about 140 miles west of the Taieri aerodrome, one of the occupants was lying on tne ground, and the other appeared to oe injured.