’PLANE NOSE-DIVES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 18 November 1929, Page 7

’PLANE NOSE-DIVES.

TWO OCCUPANTS KILLED

(United Press Association—By Eleotric Telegraph Copyright.) SYDNEY*. Nov. 17.

The Automobile Club’s races at Seven Mile Beach, at Kiama, were marred by a tragery yesterday afternoon when a Moth ’plane crashed in the surf with the pilot, Jesse O’Connor, and a passenger, William Berg, a “Daily Guardian” photographer, who was taking pictures of the races. Both were drowned.

The ’plane nose-dived .several hundred feet just outside the breakers. Rescuers swam out and found Berg’s body near the ’plane, which was badly *smaished, the engine being wrenched clear of the fuselage. O’Connor’s, body was not seen, though it was possibly entangled in the machine. Several of the rescuers were badly knocked about in the rough surf. Captain Holden, who witnessed the accident, said that evidently the engine stalled owing to the ’plane’s slow air speed. Pilot O’Connor was an experienced man and popular with airmen. His fiancee witnessed 1 the smash. Berg was widely known. His greatest achievement was when he journeyed to Alice Springs with the expedition to recover the bodies of Anderson find Hitchcock, who perished while searching for the Southen Cross. He was the first cameraman to penetrate the heart of the North Australia desert country, and also the first Press photographer to meet death while covering an assignment in an aeroplane. He had just bought a car to go on holiday with his wife.