AIR TRAGEDY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 14 October 1924, Page 7

AIR TRAGEDY.

FRENCH AIRMAIL’S FOOLISH EXPLOIT. PARIS, sug. 9. An extraordinary aeroplane accident, involving three deaths and serious injuries to four other people, occurred on Wednesday of last week in the mam street or Bourg La Reine, a pretty little town immediately soutn of Paris, says the 'Morning Post’s Paris correspondent. A young sergeant-aviator named Marcel Rapine, who is attached to the h renclr Army aviation centre at Orly, hi the near neighbourhood of his mother’s home at Bourg La Reine, has recently made it a practice during the course of his duty while testing new aeroplanes to go in the direction of his native town and perform various daring feats. On Wednesday afternoon, in company with his muchanic, a brother sergeant, he arrived over the town shortly before five, having given a display of looping the loop and other spectacular evolutions, lie came down so low. as almost to give the impression that he was flying along the main street of the town

MOTHER WATCHES SON’S EXPLOITS.

As usual on these occasions the young pilot’s mother, who lives over one of the shops, came down on the footpath to watch her son’s exploits. Suddenly, while the aeroolane roared like a tornado just above the level of the roofs lining the street, the pilot gave his machine a sharp twist to the left to avoid collision with a tall iron standard supporting a number of telephone and telegraph wires. The reckless airman perceived his danger too late. The end of the wing of liis apparatus caught the standard, and crashed. like a stone in the angle between the footpath and the Avail of the house next door to his own home, smashing the shop front and burying the airman’s own mother and two of hew neighbours beneath the Avreekage. One of the victims, a Avoman of 68, was killed instantly. Another, together with Rapine’s mechanic, Sergeant ?ygf?ly) died Avliile on the Avay to hospital. while the airman’s mother was found to have sustained a fractured skull, to relieve which the operation of trepanning was performed the same evening. AIRMAN TO BE TRIED BY COURTMARTIAL Her son, on being removed from the wreckage of his aeroplane, Avas found to be suffering from fractures of both legs and series internal injuries. He is lying in hospital, and the doctors are yet unable to state Avhether he is likely to recover. There is considerable outcry in the newspapers as to the danger of practices of the kind indulged in by Sergeant Rapine, and it is understood that he will be tried by court-martial for liis reckless conduct. The French air code prohibits flying at a height of less than 1000 metres over toAvns Avith populations of between 10,00 and 100,000, and below 2000 metres in places like Paris, which have populations of over 100,000.