STRATFORD CRASH

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 130, 3 June 1937, Page 10

STRATFORD CRASH

INVESTIGATION BEGUN

A COMPLETE WRECK

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

NEW PLYMOUTH, This Day.

Mr. R. C. Ke>n, Inspector of Civil Aircraft, arrived at Stratford last night by "car from Auckland, to examine the wreck of the ■, aeroplane in which Mr. p. J. Nathan was killed yesterday. Bad weather prevented him from flying down. He is making his inspection in company with Flight-Lieutenant Rawnsley and Mr. R. Morphy, of Wellington. The inquest was opened this morning for identification purposes only, before Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M.,' who inspected the scene of the fatality yesterday afternoon. ■ < .. Mr. Nathan's body is being taken to Wellington. , ■ • An inspection of the scene showed that the aeroplane failed to rise sufficiently to clear the hillock. First; the right landing wheel and then the left ploughed into the earth. At least one propeller blade was snapped at this point, and the left-hand wheel was found fifty yards ■ further on. About 350 yards from where it first struck, the machine crashed with terrific force into another low hillside. The engine was wrenched from its mountings and thrown fifty feet away, through a fence, into a gully, and the body of the aeroplane, in a crumpled heap, was thrown into the far side of the gully, where the rudder, and tail and the instrument board were the only parts cf the machine readily identifiable , as such. . . .