AIR FATALITY

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4811, 20 February 1936, Page 5

AIR FATALITY

WELL-KNOWN PILOT KILLED. PLANE COLLIDES WITH MAST. Striking the anemometer mast when gliding down to land at Rongotai aei'odrome yesterday afternoon, the Union Airways’ Miles Falcon private charter taxi monoplane crashed to ground upside-down, and the pilot, Squadron-Leader M. C. McGregor, received injuries from which he died in the Wellington Hospital about two hours later. The only passenger, Mr. C. W. F. Hamilton, a young sheepfarmer of Irishman’s Creek Station, Fairlie, South Canterbury, escaped with slight abrasions to the right wrist and face and a cut above his right eye. Heavy rain was falling at the time ,of the accident. The crash was heard by the officials at the aerodrome, and within a few seconds they were on the spot and had extricated Squadron-Leader McGregor and Mr. Hamilton from underneath the upturned monoplane, which had crashed several yards from the anemometer mast. This mast stands near the main road\fay on the Seatoun side of the aerodrome buildings. Squadron-Leader McGregor received extensive head injuries and a fracture of the base of the skull.