COLLAPSE IN AIR

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 50, 27 August 1930, Page 9

COLLAPSE IN AIR

PIE KENT DISASTER

MOT AN EXPLOSION

SIX VICTIMS

(from "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 25th July.

At the inquest on the six victims of the Kent air disaster at Meopham, the Coroner said that the efforts to try to discover how the accident occurred ■would involve a considerable amount of detailed examination of the wrec? age. [That was being carefully gone into by ■ISie Air Ministry and other exports, and •when their inquiries were completed the jury would no doubt Lave the benefit of their investigations. The investigations would take a considerable tame, and he, therefore, formally adSourned the inquest until 13th August. If the Air Ministry reports were not then ready it would be further acljjourned. This disaster will probably go down in the history of ayiation as one of the jnost mysterious that ever occurred, and one of the saddest. The machine was a German Junker all-metal monoplane, of a type similar to that which crashed recently in Surrey. The pilot was Lieut-Colonel G. L. P. Henderson, one of the oldest and most experienced English pilots. He went early into aviation and had flown all sorts of aeroplanes, both on the Western Front during the war and in England since. At one time he commanded a squadron of Scouts in Prance and himself did much flying with that formation. When ho left the Eoyal Plying Corps after the war he took up civilian flying, and at one time was a pilot on the cross-Chan-nel services. In that capacity ho led the pilots of Imperial Airways in their dispute with the newly-formed, combine. The company which he formed less than two years ago to offer an air taxiservice had its headquarters at Croyaon and was managed by Henderson. The machine in which he met his death was purchased, from the Junkers Company last summer in order to do private hire work |or parties of six. It had only just been overhauled in readieoss for the summer season, and was expected to be largely used in the- taxi service. Henderson's work in this business was that of organiser and manager rather than pilot. Good pilot though ho was, he is better remembered as the trainer of pilots. Por some years he ran a flying school of his own, lyad. was acknowledged by hundreds of pilots .as a fine instructor. ' BROKE UP IN AIR. The machine seems to have come to pieces in the air. The engine fell into •fihe drive of a private house, and the occupants of the aeroplane, except the pilot, were thrown out into an adjoining orchard and instantly killed. Tho jnain part of the aeroplane, spinning helplessly in the air, crashed to the ground, narrowly missing a bungalow, •tSrhile the tail was found in a field farmer on, and one of the wings, shorn off £ike a piece of paper, floated away for pnotner mile. A suit case damaged the roof; of a house, and personal_ belongings were scattered in all directions. Air. H, W. Ward, in whose orchard She five bodies, fell, said: — "1 was working in my bam when I fceard an aeroplane engine running intermittently, as though the machine ;were stunting. Then thore was a terrific noise, like a prolonged thunder fclap. ■ • . ''I ran out of the barn arid saw tho jnachine. nose-diving from a considerable height. It looked like a big bombing 'plane, surrounded by small 'planes doing a stunt. These small objects looked no bigger than my thumbnail, but as they hurtled through th© air I saw to my horror that they were human bodies, with limbs out-stretched. "Then one of the wings came off and floated like a piece of paper in the •wind. An employee of mine rushed from the orchard to meet me and told.me the body of a woman had fallen there. "When we got to the orchard we found five bodies lying among the trees, badly mutilated, and among them the radiator of the 'plane. Two bodies Jjad strnek trees and torn off branches, fpd so great was the impact that one Was driven at least a foot into the ground." CRASH OF THE ENGINE. Ma: A. JB. Parsons, the gardener, said thai he was working by a hedge when i|pe engino fell within a few fee^ of him Ifb the other side. "I heard a screaming noise, and .{jgfeen I looked up," he Baid, "I saw 'MiA propeller cutting through the air frithin a yard or two of me. In a seejfcnd or two the whole of the engine had rhuried itself a foot deep into the .'ground, and I escaped by inches." VICTIMS OF DISASTER. With the exception of Viscountess JEdnam, all the £assengers had been jinembers of a party who had spent the treek-end as the guests of Mrs. Loef#er at lie Touquet. Tho Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, whq was Speaker of the Senate of Northern Ireland, was head of a family Which has been closely identified for centuries with trfat section of Ireland where their principal home, Clanfleboye, is situated. He had been successively a captain in the 9th Lancers and in the Grenadier Guards, and in 3914, prior to. the outbreak of tho Great War, was military secretary to the Governor-General of Australia. In 1924 he was appointed commanding officer of the Ulster Division, BJJ.V/R. He was also an A.D.C. to the King. He was wounded in the South African and the Great War. One of his sisters Sp Lady Victoria Braithwaite. His son, the Earl of Ava, married Miss Maureen jghiinness a few weeks ago. Lady Ednam was the wife of Visfeount Ednam, eldest son and heir of <lhe Earl of Dudley, and was a daughter t)i the fourth Duke of Sutherland. As £ady Bosemary Millieent Leveson(Jowei1, she was married in 1919. She Was a very beautiful woman, and tho jroothor of three Bons, one of whom met <with a tragic death in London a few jtnonths ago. She had gone to Prance <to see her husband, who was detained fltere by~ illness. Lady Ednam had tjeen playing golf at Lo Touquet and jwas staying with Lady Dudley. Captain Sir Edward Simons Ward was born in 1882. He was the second fraronet, and the son of the late Colonel j§ir Edward Ward, Permanent Undersecretary ■at the War Office, who was described during the South African war as "the best commissariat officer since Moses." Sir Edward, formerly a captain in the Grenadier Guards, is succeeded by his brother, Lieut.-Com-mander Melvill Willis Ward, D.S.C., JJ.N., retired. Mrs. Loefller was a Swede by birth. Her father, who came to England about eixty years ago, left a fortune of a million and a half when he died in 1906. Hor husband, Captain Loeifler, owns one of the most luxurious yachts afloat, the Albion. Mr. Charles Shearing, the assistant pilot, lived at Crowborough. He formerly belonged to the Eoyal Air Porce. JEfe was about 28 years of age. THE PILOT'S WIFE. | Mrs. Henderson had flown over with fer husband from Lc Touquet earlier n tlie same machine, and lie had then 'gone back to fetch the other party. Hxe was motoring near Croydon on tho i tfternoon of the tragedy, and called I # flte a«o<8«Hn« soon after news had j

been received thore of the accident. She was afc once taken to Meopham by ear, and went to see tho wreckage of tho machine in which she had been a passenger a few hours before. She said that when she and her husband parted at Croydon that, morning he told her he would soon be back, as he wanted to take her to the West of England the next day. TROUBLE WITH A WASHER. Colonel Henderson arrived at Croydou from Le Touquefc just after 10 o'clock, and the machine was promptly overhauled by tho engineers and declared to bo in perfect order, the necessary 24-hours certificate required ' by the Air Ministry being signed to that effect. Just before midday Colonel Henderson took off again for another trip to the Prench coast, but he had only been in tho air for about eight minutes when , he landed again, complaining of an unusual noise in the engine. The chief engineer removed tho j cowling and discovered that a washer I of the exhaust manifold had begun to , "blow." He pointed it out to Colonel Henderson and offered to replace it, but the pilot said: "Oh, no. That's all '■ right. So long as I know what it is ] it doesn't matter," aud flew away with , the machine. _ . -

Clearly the engine gave no more trouble, "for the machine reached Le Touquet, where it picked up thb Marquess of Pufferin and Ava, Viscountess Ednam, Sir Edward Ward, and Mrs. Henrik Looffer for its fatal journey back to London. Good time was mad© across the Channel, but over Kent low clouds were encountered —at some points they were less than 800 feet above the ground. They afforded no difficulty, however, to a pilot of Colonel Henderson's experience, and he set his course for Croydon aerodrome. WHAT PROBABLY HAPPENED.

After careful examination of every portion of the wrecked machine, the experts declare that no explosion took place; there is no sign of fire or the tearing and rending of metal or woodwork which would result from such a cause. The experts are equally satisfied that the villagers were not mistaken as to the.noises they heard, and they account for them in this way:— The port wing of the monoplane, an allmetal structure, collapsed, and, with a rending sound, probably intensified by the atmospheric conditions, parted from the fuselage. That was the first big bang. The severed wing struck the tail unit like a sword and wrenched it off—that was the first of the lesser "explosions." Ana then, with all the strain thrown on to the nose o± the machine, the engine-bearers snapped and the engine plunged to the ground. The snapping of the bearers was the second little bang. , Two things appear to be certain. One is that there was no explosion, and the other is that the port wing parted in the air. Why the wing broke has to be discovered.