CRASH IN MID-AIR

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 145, 16 March 1931, Page 11

CRASH IN MID-AIR

Two Planes Collide PILOTS UNINJURED Accident During Race A Dominion Special Service. Mastertoil, March 15. During the course of the North Island Air Pageant at Mastertoil on Saturday afternoon two planes came into contact in mid-air while travelling at over 100 miles an hour, and crashed, one with its propeller splintered, and the other with both wings on one side badly torn. The pilots escaped injury. They were Mr. P. C. Lewis, of Auckland, . flying an Auckland Aero Club machine, and Mr. B. W. Boys, of Hawke’s Bay, who was in an Otago Aero Club machine. The accident occurred during the final lap of the “New Zealand Herald” Cup race. The race was over a 20 to 30-mile course, and as the four machines in the race roared round in the final lap they appeared to the crowd at the aerodrome to be almost skimming the tree tops. The accident occurred after the competitors had turned at the Waingawa Meat Works and entered the straight.

Mr. Boyes was passing Mr. Lewis when the tip of the latter’s wing touched the fuselage of the other plane, behind the cockpit, ripping a hole in it. At the same time his propeller cut its way through both Boys’s upper and lower left wings, Mr. Lewis’s propellor immediately splintered, and his wing dropping, he went down in a wide spiral, from which he desperately but vainly tried to extricate himself. He made a last attempt to straighten out in a field on the south bank of the Waingawa River, but his machine struck a fence, buried its nose in the ground, and went over on to its back.

Mr. Boys, with the tips of both of his left wings torn off, shut off his engine, and by skilful handling of his machine landed in a field of mangolds on the opposite side of the river without more than damaging his undercarriage. His machine escaped damage beyond that done to the wings and fuselage in the air and the damage to the undercarriage, but the Auckland aeroplane was not so fortunate. Its nose was badly crumped up, and general damage was done to the wings and taiL The pilot escaped with a few abrasions to his nose. The crash was seen from the aerodrome, about a mile away, and immediately the two remaining competitors in the race had landed, five aeroplanes flew to render assistance. A minor mishap occurred earlier in the afternoon, when Squadron-Leader J. L. Findlay in the Air Force’s Gloster Grebe thrilled the crowd by highspeed stunting in the machine, which is the fastest iu New Zealand. In landing, the aeroplane bumped heavily and the tail skid was torn off.