RACE WITH DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 23444, 8 December 1939, Page 2

RACE WITH DEATH

MR LINER WAS A IMS Vt FLAKS Dramatic accounts of the amazing escape from death of the 13 occupants of the British Airways liner whicu caught fire while flying at 4,000 ft over Luxeuil, France, were given when some of the passengers arrived back at Croydon. . With kho flames roaring round them. Captain D. Prowse, the pilot, and hia second in command, First-officer A; C. Whincop, stuck to their controls. I’ljey, power-dived to earth in a race witn death, and landed on the -airfield at Luxeuil at 120 miles an hour. The undercarriage smashed, but the aeroplane 'bumped to - a stop 'without overturning. Captain P.rowse and Hr Whincop leaped out, opened the passengers door, -and led them all to safety. A few seconds later the petrol tanks caught fire, and the air liner • became- a mass of hemes,' :: ■ : • -

None of the passengers whs injured, but First-officer Whincop was' badly burned on the hand and neck, and all the hair on one side of his head was singed off. The machine was on a flight from Croydon to Basle (Switzerland). One of the passengers, Ur A. H. Uouthwaite, of Harley street, declared that the handling of the machine by Captain Browse was one of the finest things he had ever seen. “ He applied the brakes and pat down the flaps at a speed of 120 .miles an hour—an unheard-of thing/’ 'he added. “ The fact that the. tail of the undercarriage gave way under the strain of lauding probably saved all our. lives, as the machine did not turn-over. The emergency door jammed. We heard shouts of ‘ Get out any way you can; break the windows.’ “ We all very quickly picked ourselves up from where we had been thrown by the jolt of landing, and were able to get out by the ordinary door.” Here Mrs Uouthwaite took up the story. “ When we all cot out of the aeroplane,” she said, the nearside wing suddenly fell. That was only, a matter of seconds after the landing. Had the pilot not come down with such speed the wing would have been burned off in the air and we should have had no chance at all.

“ The tire began burning through tha struts, but the last strut fleld until we hit the ground.” Frank Greenin, a steward, declared that all owed their lives to the way Captain Browse handled the liner. “ The port engine caught fire,” ha said, “ and flames could be seen coming from the cowling. Captain Browse put her nose down in a power-dive. Although it seemed that the ship would be burned before it could reach, safety, the passengers behaved with . wonderful coolness and courage.’’ . - ■ ', ■ ■