TWO PILOTS AND MAID KILLED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 18 January 1939, Page 7

TWO PILOTS AND MAID KILLED

BOMBER STRIKES HOUSE AT CROWSBOROUGII ATTEMPT TO LAND ON VILLAGE GREEN ru.p A.—By Electric Telegraph— Copyright! (Received 18th January. 10.5 a.m.) LONDON. 17th January. A Royal Air Force bomber crashed on the top of a house at Crowsborough, Sussex, in thick fog. The pilot of the plane and a maid working in the house were killed, while a woman resident was injured The house and plane were set on fire, and ammunition exploded, bullets riddling the pilot. The bodies of the pilot and maid were recovered from the blazing wreckage. An eye-witness stated that the plane, after the engine had cut off. apparently attempted to land on the village green. It first grazed the roof of the next door house, then crashed into the first floor of the nouse occupied by Mrs Smiley, a semi-invalid octogenarian, flinging the roof into the garden, and burying itself in the ground floor. Immediately a sheet of flame burst out and ammunition exploded like a machine-gun. Firemen subdued the fire and dragged out the engine, disclosing the bodies of the pilot and maid who had been burned to death. Mrs Smiley was rescued after the prising off of the ceiling of the room in which she was sitting, pinned by debris. She was admitted to hospital suffering from shock. CRASH INTO FIELD A second tragedy occulYed at Alton in heavy rain when a Hawker Hurricane single-seater fighter crashed in a field and the pilot was killed. PLANE STRIKES HIGH TENSION CABLES A third crash occurred at Dorking when a Hurricane Fighter struck high tension cables in blinding rain. The pilot was not injured.