DOUBLE FATALITY
DEATH OF NEW ZEALANDERS. PLANE CRASHES IN ENGLAND. (United Press Association—By ElectricTelegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, November 19. A tragic occurrence happened yesterday in the air, involving the deaths of two New Zealanders in the Royal Air Force. The machine was a tutor aeroplane, and it seems that whi.e travelling the engine ceased to function. The pilot, Flight-Lieutenant Harold Claude Marett' ; (N.a.pier) had with him as a fjassenger Acting-Pilot- Officer Adrian (Kinross White (Hawke’s Bay), who onlyr.! joined!‘i*t Uxbridge on Sep : teniber -3, and was posted to No. 3 Flying Training School, at Grantham. Both officers were attached to the No. 3 Flying Training School, Spittlegate Aerodrome.
A correspondent at Great Ponton, near Grantham, reports that the machine crashed into a field on the Great Ponton Heath Farm, belonging to Major.R. W. Newton, of Grantham. The machine was just coining out of one of the series of stunts, and was about 200 feet above the ground, when the engine stopped. Major Newton said that the aeroplane seemed to go into spin and dive straight to earth.. “Acting-Pilot Officer White attempted to escape by parachute,” he said. “but 1 - the machine was 100 near the ground; Farm labourers working in the fields rushed to spot, and found the mail with the parac-liuto dead, some distance from the machine. When they had extricated the pilot from the twisted fuselage he also was dead.”
Major Newton -said: “The passenger attempted to escape by parachute, hut the aeroplane was too near the ground, and he crashed before the parachute had ft chance to open.” A' few minutes before the crash the machine passed over the Stoke Rockford golf course, and women golfers were among the first on the scene. This double fatality brings the total death roll in Royal Air Force accidents this year to 45. Flight-Lieutenant Ala re ft had been in the Royal Air Force for some four years. He was an officer who had done extremely well and was likely to secure further advancement. He had been in Iraq with the No. 55 Romber Squadron, returning to England early in 1931.'
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Bibliographic details
Hokitika Guardian, 22 November 1932, Page 6
Word Count
349DOUBLE FATALITY Hokitika Guardian, 22 November 1932, Page 6
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