CRASH AT SEA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 7, 8 December 1930, Page 7

CRASH AT SEA.

FLYING IN FOG. MISS SPOONER’S NARRATIVE. ROME, Dec. 6. Miss Spooner, the British airwoman, and Flying-Officer Edwards, who left Croydon on Wednesday on ail attempt to beat the record flying time to Capetown and were forced down by engine trouble in the sea off the Italian coast the same night, are both at Belmonte.

The Italian authorities sent a seaplane to be entirely at their disposal, and the Italian Press publish lengthy articles praising Miss Spooner’s part in tins adventure. Flying-Officer Edwards was piloting, at the time of the crash. Miss Spooner got into the water and lost sight of the aeroplane in the darkness, but through a driving rainstorm she saw a light at the station and managed to struggle ashore after swimming in heavy flying clothes for two hours. She asked that search parties be sent to look for Flying-Officer Edwards, and went in one of the rescuing boats. The search parties found Flying Officer Edwards almost unconscious from loss of blood and exposure. He was clinging to the tail of the deeply submerged aeroplane, but insisted on remaining there to superintend the towing of the ’plane into the harbour. Miss Spooner’s own narrative throws fresh light on the adventure, and shows that the aeroplane flew directly into the sea. After leaving Rome she went to sleep. Three hours later she awoke and noticed that they were flying in a fog. She asked Fly-ing-Officer Edwards their whereabouts, and lie asked for a navigation chart. While lie was reaching for it there was a terrific crash. A few moments previously the altimeter showed 11,000 feet. She could not understand how the mistake occurred. Directly the machine struck, sea water entered the cabin. “I made an exit through the window and began to swim,” Miss Spooner stated. “I called out to Edwards: ‘Swim for it!’ He apparently did not hear me. I swam for two hours before I reached the shore.” Members of the Italian Air Force dismantled Miss Spooner’s machine for dispatch to Naples. Flying-Officer Edwards and Miss Spooner will proceed there before going to London in Flying-Officer Edwards’s Motli.