PLANE CRASHES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 10

PLANE CRASHES

Men’s Lucky Escape HOME-MADE CRAFT First Time Off Ground Dominion Special Service. Auckland. December 5. Two adventurous Auckland residents crawled out of the debris of the aeroplane Evo 11, when it suddenly crashed on the sand at Muriwai Beach yesterday afternoon. They surveyed ruefully the remains of the machine, which had cost them » much money and many months of work. Both pilot and mechanic had a miraculous escape from death. To-day they were nursing cuts and bruises, but hope to bo in the air again before long. The pilot was Mr. Ernest Everson, of Herne Bay. His younger brother, Arthur, was in the passenger’s seat. They built the plane at their hornet and since then have had more than their ordinary share of adventure. They had been camping at Muriwai beach for several days carrying out trials with the machine. Yesterday they decided to try to get into the air. A strong south-west wind was blowing. Eye-witnesses of the crash say that after taxi-ing along the beach for fully three-quarters of a mile the machine gathered the speed of about 50 miles an hour. Just after the tail skid had lifted the left wing collapsed and the machine dashed on its nose. Pieces of wreckage were strewn along the beach for fully 50 yards. Doctor Looking On. Immediately after the crash, the eye-witnesses, one of whom was an exnaval surgeon, rushed to the brothers’ assistance and attended to them. The machine is a complete “write off.” The propeller was broken off short and. the rear half of the plane was buried ’n the sand, the fuselage being upside down, with the wheels in the air.

There was not one square foot of the machine left,” said Mr. Ernest Everson this morning when asked what he had done with the plane. All we brought home was the engine and wheels and axle together with a few of the instruments and some wire.” He said that he had never had any lessons in flying although he and his brother were both members of the. Auckland Aero Club. They had. been in the air on several occasions but the knowledge they had of flying was the result of five years’ study. Their first experience had been 'with a plane which they tried out on Mangere Speedway. Disaster overtook that machine on the first attempt to flv on July 10, 1929.”

Owners’ Second Plane. “The machine we experimented with yesterday,” said Mr. Everson, “was our second and was constructed in our' own workroom. We took it to Muriwai last year but found that the 23 h.p. motorcycle engine which we had installed was / not powerful enough and so we did not attempt to fly. It was then a single seater known as a low-wing monoplane. Afterward we obtained a 200 h.p. aeroplane engine which had been imported for a speedboat It was found to be far too powerful for that purpose and was sold to us. When we installed it we altered the plane to a two seater.”

Wing Breaks in Air. Describing the accident, he said; “We taxied slowly down the beach and then turned back. I stepped her up to full throttle. She reached 50 miles an hour in the first 200 yards and I took off. She climbed steadily to an altitude of about 20 feet and reached 60 miles an hour in the next 100 yards. The strain caused a strut of the left wing to snap and the result was that the wing folded up and the wind carried the remaining wing into such a position that the plane rolled completely over and came down with a thud on the beach, landing square on her back. I was struck by the right wing in the air and was thrown out. Thank goodness I was not strapped in or else I would not be alive to tell the story. Passenger’s Experience. “My brother, Arthur, bad a marvellous escape from death. He was still in the plane when it landed. The impact forced him through the windscreen and he was thrown through the side of the fuselage carrying the back of the pilot’s seat, timber and instrument boards with him. I was unconscious for about three quarters of an hour but after attention by a number of ladies on the beach soon felt all right again." Both brothers are resolved to succeed in the construction of an aeroplane.