AVIATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 July 1932, Page 7

AVIATION

PLANE STRUCK BY LIGHTNING?

[by .CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.]

LONDON, July 28. The crash of Bruce Bossom’s plane occurred near Churt, not far from the houses of Mr Lloyd George and Lord Snowden. The bodies of the victims were widely separated when they were found, being several hundred feet from the wreckage. They were so mutilated that they only were identifiable by articles in the pockets. Only a few soldiers and pedestrians witnessed the accident. -

An officer of the Border Regiment saw the plane emerge, from the clouds and it was wingless, like a flying bedstead. He was horrified to see the fuselage break up, and the bodies fall, followed by the petrol tank. The “News-Chronicle” calls attention to extraordinary similarity between the Bossom crash and the Meopham disaster on July 21, 1931, when following an explosion, fragments fell from a thick cloud.

Mrs Bossom often went on flights with her son. Prince Ctto, aged 23, was making his first visit to England. It is believed that the crash was due to lightning striking the plane. Bossom’s ambition was to break the records to South Africa and Australia, and to cross the Atlantic. He narrowly escaped death in May, 1931, when he crashed in Cheshire, and his machine took fire.