AIR DISASTER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 11, 11 December 1935, Page 10

AIR DISASTER

ELEVEN PERSONS PERISH. A TERRIBLE SAIASH. (United Press Association- —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received December 11, 1.10 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 10. The worst disaster to a civil aeroplane in England occurred at Tatsfield, Kent, when _an Italian tripled-engined Savoia monoplane, which had been bought by the Belgian Sabena Company and was flying from Brussels to Croydon, crashed in a field. Eleven were killed, including Sir John Carden, tlm aero engineer. The crash was heard two miles away and was described as the most complete imaginable. Everything seemed to be smashed to pieces and the bodies were terribly mutilated.

The machine carried a pilot, an engineer, a wireless operator, a steward and seven passengers, three of whom were British and four Germans. It was bound from Cologne to London. The air liner appeared to be slightly off its course and when close to Tatsfield was observed to be flying low, presumably owing to ice on tlie wings. People in the neighbourhood saw one wing hit the tree-tops on a small hill near Pitsie Hill. The machine staggered and the pilot apparently tried to gain height, but crashed into the summit of Pitsie Hill and dropped. Alany rushed to the scene, but the passengers and crew appeared to have been killed instantly. The machine did not catch fire. Sir John Carden was wcli-known at Heston airport, where he designed and built the aeroplane engines bearing his name.

It is stated tljat every tank in the British Army was designed by Sir John Carden, who was himself a pilot and had lately shown particular interest in light machines. It was his engine with which Mr Appleby last week flew the Channel in the Flying Flea.

A brief earlier message relating to the above appears on page 9.