TAKE OFF TRAGEDY

Northern Advocate, 19 March 1929, Page 5

TAKE OFF TRAGEDY

CRASH INTO FREIGHT CAR FOURTEEN PERSONS KILLED. ONLY TWO SURVIVORS. (Australian Press Association.)'. ' I ' (Received 9 a.m.) NEW YORK, March 17. : At Newark (New Jersey), 14 per* sons were killed on Sunday when a metal plane crashed. When the plane smashed against a freight car the engines failed and the pilot was compelled to make a forced, landing, from which only two' escaped.

One of these was Lou Foote, former ace of the Ford flying fleet, who piloted a previous flight of the plane* which had been named Miss Newark by Mrs Calvin Coolidge. The second survivor was Mr Belmont Parsons, of Brooklyn, Both escaped death because they were seated in the twin pilots’ seat four feet above the cabin, which was sheared from the wings above.

• The cabin was reduced to an entangled mass of steel and human bodies torn limb from limb.

Both survivors were injured, but it is believed they will recover. The crash followed the take-off, the’ passengers paying £l, each for thei trip. ; , ■ '

The three massive, 220 horse-power* Wright-Whirlwind motors were hurled 50 feet. ■

The tragedy is the greatest in the history of heavier-than-air craft in. the United States.

RHODESIAN DISASTER.

TWO FATALITIES OCCUR. (Australian Press Association.) (Received 11.13 a.m.) ’ CAPETOWN, March 18. A Royal Ak Force aeroplane crash I *, ed when , taking off at Gwelo (Rhode* sia) on the return journey. The pilot and passenger were killed. This is-, the first fatality during British flights at the Cape. V