PLANE CRASH ON HOUSE

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 December 1940, Page 8

PLANE CRASH ON HOUSE

TWO AIRMEN KILLED

MANAWATU tragedy

[PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

PALMERSTON N., December 30. Two men were killed when an Airspeed Oxford training machine from Oha.kea, crashed through the middle of a two-storey wooden house, on the Siberia property of C. M. Kebbell, near Ashhurst, at the entrance to the Manawatu Gorge, this morning. The men were: Sergeant R. BrookeTaylor, aged 25, instructor, formerly of Christchurch. His wife is living at 290 Madras Street Christchurch.

Leading ■ Aircraftman T. A. H. Alexander, trainee, nearing the close of his period at Ohakea. He came from Kohukbhu, North Auckland, and was aged 26. Both men were killed instantly, the machine hitting the house square on at' the eaves, passing right through it. The plane was disintegrated to a remarkable degree. * One engine and the tangled wreckage'of the cockpit were found 100yds from the dwelling. The other engine was about 50 yards further on, in a creek at the bottom of a gully. The bodies of both men were still strapped in their seats, near the wrecked cockpit. About 10 minutes before the plane crashed, the four children of Mr. and Mrs. Kebbell, one of them a baby, were in the nursery with the nurse, Miss M. Champion, and the machine went straight through the nursery, leaving nothing but a square gaping hole. The floor was littered with broken boards and small debris. Practically everything in the room was swept clear, and deposited f;om the front steps of the house to 100 yards away, with pieces of the plane.

The children and the nurse were having breakfast on one side of the house on the ground floor. Mr. and Mrs. Kebbell were in the breakfast room, on the other side. Other persons were in this area also, and the machine passed through the residence, squarely between the two groups. There were six adults and four children in the house or in the buildings immediately adjacent. One woman was in a wash-house, and one end of the gable was ripped off this building.

Just before the machine crashed into the house itself, two persons saw the plane approach, and witnessed the smash. They were M. J. Murphy, a sharemilker engaged on the property, and his son Mauride, 18. They said that the machine was approaching from the direction of Levin, and was flying toward the gorge to the right of Mr. and Nirs. Kebbell’s home, when it turned to the left. They both thought that it might hit the cow-bails, but it missed these, and then missed some power-wires. While it was still banked to turn, the plane hit the house with a terrific impact. Both said that it was just like an explosion, and then all was over.

DAMAGE TO HOUSE. It .is suggested that, when the plane passed through it, one engine travelled below the ceiling of the nursery, and the other above the ceiling, this being still in position. The room was left like a box with the ends knocked out, and all the roofing above is

missing. Heavy beams have been sheared off. Hardly one board is nailed to another, and the top of the flight of stairs was mown away. Pieces of the bannisters were found away out in the paddock, and evidently had been carried part of the way by the plane. After tipping the end of the washhouse, and shearing away the roof, the machine took four power wires leading to the house, then hitting the building square-on, and went through three walls. Against one stood a wardrobe, in which Miss Champion had all her belongings. This morning, she had left only what she was wearing. Her Clothes and the children’s clothes lay somewhere in the debris on the floor, in the garden, or possibly in the paddock. There was a crumpled bed 50 yards from the house, and a-mattress near the main part of the wrecked plane mutely told how narrowly the children had missed disaster. One iroom only, out of eight on the top floor of the house, remained undamaged. The middle of the house also suffered damage on the ground floor, by reason of the crash above.