Plane crash in street puzzling

Press, 27 February 1986, Page 18

Plane crash in street puzzling

PA Auckland The crash of a light plane in a street, killing the pilot, had as many inexplicable features as many road accidents, a coroner said. The Auckland Coroner, Mr Stephen Osborne, found that George Jones, aged 66, of Birkenhead, died from multiple injuries accidentally suffered when, for reasons unknown, he lost control of his Jodel D 9 .aircraft and crashed it last December.

The Coroner said that, like many road accidents, no amount of inspectors’ reports would clarify what had happened.

He was convinced Mr

Jones had been in good health on the day of the accident. Mr Dean Oxborough, in a written statement tG the North Shore Coroner’s “ Court, said he was driving past Bracken Avenue, Takapuna, when the plane crashed in the street. “I looked and saw about • 100 metres down the street a light aeroplane nosing towards the ground at a steep angle,” Mr Oxborough said. Mr Walter Reinauer, who had been flying his own aircraft alongside Mr Jones, said in a written statement to the Court that the Jodel D 9 aircraft had been out of the air for about seven months having minor repairs.

The fatal flight had been its first after the repair work. It had been checked by an aircraft engineer beforehand.