CRASH NEAR BRISBANE

Evening Star, Issue 23127, 29 November 1938, Page 9

CRASH NEAR BRISBANE

AIR FORCE AMPHIBIAN FOUR MEN RURNED TO DEATH Press Association—By Telegraph—Coypright BRISBANE, November 28. Three Air Force men and one policeman were burned to death when an Air Force Seagull amphibian plane struck a high tension power cable and crashed and caught flre_ near Beenleigh, 24 miles south of Brisbane, about noon today. The victims were:— Flying-officers Max Wyber and 11. Milner. Mechanic E. Everett. Constable Young, of the water police, Brisbane. The accident happened while the plane was flying low over the mangrove banks of Logan River at Alberton, searching for a missing young society woman, Miss Marjorie Norval, aged 30, who had been personal secretary to the wife of the Queensland Premier, Mrs Forgan Smith, and had mysteriously disappeared on November 11. The plane had searched small islands at the southern end of Moreton Bay and was travelling slowly up Logan River when it suddenly struck a high tension wire, which ripped off the float and threw the machine to the river bank, where it was immediately enveloped in flames. The local ferryman was the sole eye-witness. Being unable to approach the burning machine, he summoned help by telephone. The bodies, a blackened mass, were extricated from the wreckage. , Wyber lived at Newcastle, and Milner and Everett in Sydney. Constable A Young who was aged 43 and married, lived at Brisbane, The fourth member of the seaplane crew, Aircraftsman Grainger, was left behind at Brisbane in order to make room for the constable.