CRASH INTO HOUSES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 15

CRASH INTO HOUSES

HELPLESS PILOT

EXPLOSION AND FIRE

TRAGIC DEATH ROLL

(By Air Mall, from "The Post's" London

Representative.)

LONDON, September ,5.

A terrible daylight tragedy—the worst of its kind ever known in. this country—occurred at 2.30 on Sunday, when an R.A.F. aeroplane, piloted by Sergeant S. R. Morris, crashed into houses on a council estate at Edmonton, setting three of them on fire. Seven people were killed outright. The death-roll adds up to eleven, and some thirty people were injured, mostly by severe burns. Some of the injuries were received when attempts at rescue were being made. Many of the people had hastily left their homes after hearing the crash, and were running towards the machine when flames suddenly shot out and a loud explosion occurred. ; People from surrounding streets were on the scene within a moment or two of the crash, and worked hard to put out the flames. They were joined by police and several R.A.F. men, who were . engaged for hours afterwards sorting .out the tangled wreckage of the machine. Sergeant Morris lived at Hampstead, Shortly before the accident he had left the Hatfield Aerodrome on an ordinary routine flight in an aircraft of No. 1 '• Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School, Hatfield. As the machine was coming down the helpless I pilot shouted and waved to the people 'below to get out of the way. The aeroplane first struck the house of Mr. G. Tant, tearing away a small portion of the masonry. It bounced in the roadway just outside the front garden,. killing an eight-year-old • boy, James Tant, and then shot across the road into the houses occupied by the Saunders and Callaghan families. FAMILIES AT THEIR MEAL. Only the fact that most of the fami-i lies were still at their; midday meal prevented more casualties. A few minutes later the street would have been full of children playing or leaving for Sunday school, for the cornet where the machine struck the1 first house is a spot where they congregate. There were about $a dozen children playing there at the time, and the." pilot; despite his predicament, saw them. He stood in the cockpit waving to them to scatter. He was still standing when ■ his machine struck the first house. Mr. W. J. Saunders, of Sweet Briar* green, a neighbouring street, said to a representative of the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post": "It was the bravest action I have seen for a long time. I am an ex-fireman and ambulance man and have seen a few brave deeds in my time. "I was in my garden and saw th« machine flying low over my house. There was no sound from the engine and I i suppose the pilot was trying to land in Pymmes Park, just at the end of the road. It was obvious that he must hit something. . ' "I hurried out,. knowing that 'thei children -would be down the road, and as I ran I could see the pilot standing? up signalling to the children to get; out of the way.:, Some iOf them- did so> arid threw themselves down in the road. IMMEDIATE FLAMES. "At that moment the machine, struck the roof of No. 19 Dunholme Road, where Jimmy Tant lived. A wing fell off into the garden where it struck Jimmy arid his sister Jean. "By the time I was round the corner; a man had picked Jimmy up in hiSr arms, dead,. A man enveloped in, flames was leaning over the fence : groaning, and another man in flames, was staggering about. Across the roadthe machine had crashed ifito the: Saunderses' house, No. 28, and into No. 30, where the Callaghans live. No. 28. was blazing. . . - - "I put my coat round one burned man, sand others came up with blankets for the other one.. Everyone in the road was out lending a hand. "Two men who tried to get into No., 28- were -severely burned. , The pilot, was lying terribly mutilated in the garden of No. 28." . •-. Mr. and Mrs. Saunders and their, four children were all at dinner when the machine crashed into the walls.of their house and the house next .door and dropped a few feet to earth. The petrol tank exploded with a roar which could be heard all over Edmonton. The r machine's engine was apparently blown, forward, crashing into the front door of No. 30, bringing down the door and part of the wall. • • Pieces of the machine were blown into the road, on to and over the roofs of Nos. 26, 28, and 30, into their back, • and front gardens. A great hole-was' torn in the roof of No. 30, and; win-.; dows were broken in adjoining houses. Mr. Saunders and his son Roy stag-: ' gered out into the road in flames; through the burning wreckage. Mrs.. Saunders and Derek are believed to; have run upstairs,- where they were burned to death. A' daughter, Joyce, aged 13, was spending the day with her; grandmother. THE CALLAGHAN FAMILY. At No. 30, where lived the Callaghan family of eight, four of the children" were believed to be with their parents in the kitchen, while two had gone to Sunday school. The father somehow passed his children out through the ground-floor front window, all suffering from burns. Neighbours hurried . them into the houses. ".. ; . ; The mother is believed,to have been trapped in the kitchen until a neigh-. ( bour dragged her out. "Doris staggered over to me as I ran out of my house," Mrs. Forbes, a neigh-j • bour, said. "Her face was unrecognis-. able for burns, and nearly all her." clothing was burned off. My husband; was burned about the arms getting the. Callaghan children out. He could not; get into the house. . "The Letch brothers —one of whom died in hospital—were terribly injured. They got into the Saunders' house and; dragged at least one of the family out." Thousands of pepple poured into the; district, and police reserves were hurried to the scene.' j Mrs. Rose Sorrell, one of the injured, is the mother of a boy who had probably the narrowest escape of all. Bobby Sorrell, who is 12, was with Jimmy Tant. "I was sitting on his fence," he said, "when something like a great black bird came over making straight for Jimmy's roof. I shouted to Jimmy, 'Run, run,' and ran away down the road myself. Then, I saw the aeroplane knock down the fence, hit the side of the house, and then fall in the garden. I ran indors and told mother that an aeroplane was down, and there was a fire and people, in the houses. She and dad came out with coats and blankets." The Edmonton Fire Brigade was able t to prevent- No. 28, .which suffered most from fire, from being entirely; destroyed. ■ • .'.'... Miss Ada Letch, 19, sister .of the Letch brothers, was at her garden gate when Jimmy Tant was .struck. She: attended to him as he lay in the rbatt,* although she had been struck' by flying'" fragments of the machine. .