LEAP FOR LIFE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 July 1935, Page 7

LEAP FOR LIFE

PLA2?E CRASHES IN FLAMES LONDON, July 10. Out of control after its pilot had leaped for life by iparachute, an R.A.F. fighting aeroplane crashed on a railway track near Harrow, • where for a time the wreckage blazed. The machine, which belonged to No. 41 Fighter Squadron, of Northolt, was being flown by Flying-Officer Peter WJohnston abutt 500 ft or 600 ft up when t-rouble developed. An eye-witness, Mr J. W. Rose, ofSouth Harrow, stated ■: “The machine was one of three which were high over the district, when it seemed to wctbble and to be flying in a zig-zag fashion. Then it began a spiral dive. A moment afterwards the pilot jumped out, and in a few seconds his parachute had opened.” The pilot landed utiliiirt in a clump of trees. Children attending a neighbouring council, school were astonished to see him drop from the clouds, pick himse]f up and walk away unhurt. in the meantime the machine, which had narrowly missed housetops and a maze of telephone wires, came down on the main line of the L.M.S. Railway about 50 yards north of Harrow and Weald.stone station.

The Wealdstone Fire Brigade turned out to quell flames that immediately leaped up. Picking their way ovoi several sots of live rails, the firemen played foam extinguishers on the fierce blaze, which soon burned itself o ll t. The wreckage lay across the up fast and the down, slow Him. hut the signalman acted promptly. The stationmastev at Harrow and Wealdstone said, “When the signalman heard the crash he immediately sent out tele-hone warnings, and saw that the signals were still kept at danger. Traffic was not held un to any great extent, as the hanPened when them was a lull in the fast plow traffic between Fuston and the North.”