Shocking Carnage When Plane Crashes Into Crowd Of 50,000

Northern Advocate, 26 July 1938, Page 5

Shocking Carnage When Plane Crashes Into Crowd Of 50,000

(Received 10 a.m.) NEW YORK, July 25. LEAST 34 PERSONS WERE KILLED AND 150 WERE INJURED WHEN A MILITARY AEROPLANE CRASHED INTO A CROWD OF 50.000 SPECTATORS AT A MILITARY REVIEW AT THE OPENING OF THE ARMY CAMPS AT BOGOTA, CAPITAL OF THE CENTRAL AMERICAN REPUBLIC OF COLUMBIA. Doctors estimated that the eventual deathroll will be at least 50, as several of those injured are certain to die. The aeroplane was performing aerobatics only 90 feet from the ground when it attempted to pass between the diplomatic corps stand and the grandstand occupied by President Lopez and the President-elect, Senor Eduardo Santos. The tip of a wing hit the diplomatic corps’ stand and then struck the presidential stand, from which it broke the steps. The shrieks of the crowd were drowned by the noise of the aeroplane ripping through the metal roof of the stand, and the explosion of the petrol tanks. When it hit the ground the aeroplane burst into flame immediately. The crowd ran in all directions, but some were powerless to escape.

Heads Cut Off. Several persons who were in the path of the propellers were decapitated as the machine cut through the bystanders like a scythe. Some of those injured were soaked •by a spray of burning petrol, and shrieked in desperation and pain. President Lopez and Senor Santos were not harmed, but the burning aeroplane fell only a-few yards from them. The wife of Mr Julio Minoda, Japanese Charge d’Affaires, was slightly injured about the head. Miss Isabel Paske-Smith, daughter of the British Minister, Mr Montague Paske-Smith, had a narrow escape. Notable Anniversary. It was the 155th anniversary of the birth of Simon Bolivar, soldier, statesman and hero of South America’s 19th century struggle for independence.