Pianist Clung To Wing Tip Of Crashed Plane

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 October 1948, Page 7

Pianist Clung To Wing Tip Of Crashed Plane

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, This Day. Clinging to the wing-tip' of a crashed flying-boat for over 20 minutes, Moura Lympany, the noted English pianist, had an exciting experience on her homeward flight after touring New Zealand. “We crashed at Sourabaya on September 5,” writes her husbanfl, Colonel Colin, Defries, in a letter to an Auckland friend. “On taking off the float on the port side broke and smashed into the port wing. We nearly turn over on stopping.' The window on my side was broken by a volume of water and my arm was cut, although I didn’t know at the time.

“There we were, miles from our base and buffeted by heavy seas. We all moved to the starboard wing to try and weigh it down. Moura, being the nearest to the escape hatch, was first out, and, therefore, on the wingtip about 40 feet in the air, hanging on for grim death, as she was jolted each time the wing was shaken by the waves. “Eventually we got her and the other women and a child away. The rest, of us stayed to salvage the luggage, throwing it into a launch. “Just after we cast off our rope the flying-boat suddenly turned upside down and sank. Another machine came from Singapore next morning, so we got home only one day late. There were two New Zealanders aboard.” ________