’PLANE WRECKED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 10 June 1936, Page 7

’PLANE WRECKED

FORCED LANDING AT BLENHEIM

MIRACULOUS ESCAPE OF OCCUPANTS QUICK DECISION OF SQUADRONLEADER CHANDLER (By Telegi apb—Press Association) BLENHEIM, This Day. The Dominion’s first Aero Club machine, the mother ZK-AAA, belonging to the Marlborough Aero Club, was wrecked this morning as the result of a forced landing in the front garden of a house near the Municipal Aerodrome. The accident occurred in the course of a training flight by Pilot-Instructor Squadron-Leader N. E. Chandler, accompanied by a pupil, Pilot A. Griffin, of Nelson. Both escaped injury. Shortly after taking off SquadronLeader Chandler discovered that the rudder control was inoperative and elected to effect a quick landing in a nearby paddock. Trees in the vicinity necessitated a sharp descent and the machine struck a wire fence. Eye-witnesses state that the plane bounced into the air almost in the front of Mr F. B. Porter’s house, caught in a service electric line which it brought down, ripping a large board off the house.

Miraculously the live wires did not ignite the plane, which crashed in an inverted position, a few feet from the cottage.

The occupants struggled from the wreckage without even a scratch. The plane broke its back at the cockpits, while the wings spreadeagled. The damaged machine has an interesting history as it was a gift from Baron Wakefield to New Zealand in 1929 and was alloted by the Government to the Marlborough Aero Club. Subsequently Squadron-Leader Chandler effected a forced landing in it in the sea at Ships Cove, Queen Carlotte Sound. The plane has been rebuilt several times after smashes and little of the original machine remains, except the identification letters, which are the first issued under the present system.