AIR TRAGEDY

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 53, 30 August 1940, Page 13

AIR TRAGEDY

EVIDENCE AT INQUEST (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHUPCH, August 29. An inquest into the deaths of two members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force who were killed when an j Airspeed Oxford machine crashed at: Akaroa on June 15, was completed in j Christchurch before the Coroner, Mr. j E. C. Levvey. The men were Leading Aircraftman John Lindsay McFayden and Leading Aircraftman . Francis Morris McFarlane, respectively pilot and gunner of the aeroplane. The inquest had been adjourned from Akaroa. Expert evidence was given by members of the ground staff at Wigram. William Laurie Marson, flight mechanic, said he had inspected the machine on the previous day and had found everything in first-class order. Dennis Bo wen Patterson, flight rigger at Wigram, said he had inspected the fabric, undercarriage, elevators, rudder, and other equipment of the machine and had found them to be all in perfect order. Robert Henry Swan King, flightlieutenant, said the men killed had been under his supervision for about six weeks. Each man had had about five months of solo flying and was within about two weeks of completing his training. Both were pupils above the average and both had been in good health.

The Coroner found in each case that death was caused by a fracture of the spine and other bones of the body, received when the machine stalled on a step turn to the left at a low altitude and spun to the ground, bursting into flames on impact.