NO TRACE FOUND

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20164, 6 February 1940, Page 11

NO TRACE FOUND

GREW OF BOMBER PLANE'S FALL IN SEA LITTER OF WRECKAGE RESCUERS HARD FIGHT SALVAGE ATTEMPT FAILS (Per Pross Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Further details of the disaster shortly before noon to-day when a Royal New Zealand Air Force bomber from Wigram crashed into the sea between Waimana and North Beach, with the loss of the three members of the crew, Flight-Lieutenant A. D. Boulton, and Aircraftsmen Birbeck and Strachan, show that swimmers found it impossible to get close to the plane as the sea was littered with fragments of the shattered fuselage and wings. The tide was making strongly and this added to the difficulties. When the rescuers eventually reached the plane they could find no trace of the occupants, and it is assumed that the men had been thrown clear and then sank by the weight of their waterlogged flying clothes. After several attempts a light lifesaving line brought from Waimairi Beach was made fast to the wreckage, but it was not equal to the task and snapped. At this stage the wreckage was floating about 200yds from the shore and the intervening sea was covered with floating debris. Among the articles washed ashore were one of the landing wheels and part of the undercarriage, the two shattered halve, of the propeller, a large canvas air tank and what appeared to be a portion of the pilot’s log, so saturated with sea water as to be indecipherableWhen attempts to beach the wreckage by means of a life-saving line had failed, the Sumner lifeboat was sent for and she sailed from Sumner at 12.40. The trip will probably take an hour.