PERILOUS DESCENT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20209, 30 March 1940, Page 5

PERILOUS DESCENT

PLIGHT IN AEROPLANE SNAKE AMONG CONTROLS SYDNEY, March 6. At a height of 2000 ft in his aeroplane, Dr. Clyde Fenton, the ‘‘Flying Doctor” of the Northern Territory, had an unenviable experience. He found a venomous brown snake among the rudder controls of his private plane. Crouched on the pilot’s sea, Dr. Fenton made a forced landing, using only the joystick Dr. Fenton was taking Sister Jane Smith back to Katherine Hospital from the Hodgson Downs station, where his Fox ambulance plane crashed last week. The snake, which was about 4ft long, evidently entered the cockpit while Dr. Fenton and Sister Smith were lunching at the Roper Valley station. They had travelled 100 miles when the snake appeared in front of Dr. Fenton’s face. “Its head was reared about a foot from the floor of the cockpit,” said Dr. Fenton. “P made a frantic kick, and sent the snake among the rudder pedals, where I couldn’t see it. 1 wasn’t game to keep my feet on the pedals, I almost stood on the seat. 1 flew the machine by using the joystick and giving the rudder an occasional kick. We landed in long grass at a railway siding near Maranboy, 210 miles south of Darwin. We found the snake coiled in the controls case. We pinned it with a spare joystick and crushed its head with a hammer.” To enable the plane to take off again, Dr. Fenton and Sister Smith had to cut about 200 yards of tall grass.