AEROPLANE DISASTER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 10 April 1922, Page 5

AEROPLANE DISASTER

COLLISION ON LONDON-.PARIS ROUTE ((By Electric Telegraph-Copyright) (Published in tho Times.) PARIS, April 8. A shocking aeroplane disaster occurred at Tilloy. A British aeroplane of tho Daimler lino, bound from Loudon to Paris with mails, collided near Tilloy with a Goliath machine, which left. Ec Bom-get with three passengers for Loudon. Both machines caught tiro rafter crashing. Five passengers and mechanics were killed and ono pcrsomscriously injured. At the time of the collision the visibility was fairly good, but low clouds and light rain prevailed. The aeroplanes were four hundred feet above the earth, flying low. Tho speed was about 105 miles an hour. The Daimler was carrying mails for newspapers, with a pilot named Duke and a mechanic. The Goliath -was in charge of pilot Mier. Spectators heard the roar of engines, then a deafening crash, after which a mass of smoke and flames seemed to divide into two as it fell. When spectators reached the spot five bodies were in the twisted debris. Duke’s mechanic was still alive, but he died in hospital The passengers included Bruce Yuli and wife, Americans. This is tho first collision on tho Lon-■dou-Paris route, and also the fisrfet fatal crash on this route since December 1920, since when eighteen thousand passengers have been carried without accident. LONDON, Anri! 9. It is pointed out that the chances are H million to one against two aeroplanes on the London-Paris route meeting in exactly the same line at exactly the same altitude. Such an accident had never happened before and probably would never happen again in this generation.