NIGHT CRASH

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 71, 25 March 1938, Page 12

NIGHT CRASH

VICKERS BOMBER

1 PILOT UNINJURED

REMARKABLE ESCAPE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

ASHBURTON, This Day.

A miraculous escape from denth was experienced by Pilot-Officer E. S, Reynolds when a Vickers Vildebeeste bomber crashed during night-flying exercises about seven miles enst of Ash burton last night.

Full details are not available, but marks indicate that the landing wheels struck a high gorse fence, the plane touching ground a few yards inside the fence. With its nose well down and the propeller churning up the ground the machine ran for"6o yards when the engine hit the ground, the plane somersaulting twice, coming to rest on its back nearly two hundred yards from the fence.

The engine was torn out of the machine apparently when it first hit the ground, and, rolling 150 yards, struck the wreckage of the aeroplane. The under-carriage was torn off, the nose of the machine was completely smashed in, the top wing was shattered, and the lower wing broken beyond repair. The pilot crawled out of the wreck with only minor abrasions and sought assistance at a nearby house. He did not know he was near the ground until the plane struck the hedge, and he had no opportunity to light the wingtip flares. The machine hit the ground at the normal cruising speed of 120 miles an hour. ■ " -

Pilot-Officer Reynolds was one of the pupil officers who, after training by aero clubs, are undergoing short courses at the Royal New Zealand Air Force Station, Wigram. At the time of the crash he was making a flight to Ashburton and back as part of his normal training routine. Last evening several similar flights were made.