AIR FORCE TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20076, 13 October 1928, Page 13

AIR FORCE TRAGEDY.

TWO MEN KILLED IN CRASH. SHOCK FOR EASTERN GUEST. Australian Press Association—United Service LONDON, Oct. 11. An Air Forco plane crashed into the Royal enclosure, from which the King watches the annual air pageant at the Hendon aerodrome, and was buried deep in the ground. Its two occupants, the pilot, Lieutenant Somervell, and a mechanic, Corporal Loud, were killed a few yards away from the Sultan of Oman, Arabia, Soyyid bin Turki, in whose honour the air force was giving a display. Five types of bombers were flying past at 100 miles an hour at a height of 200 feet. The tail of Lieutenant Somervell's machine became detached from the machine, which nose-dived. Loud jumped from a height of 150 feet. The Sultan who was wearing a red-and-gold robo and a green turban, jumped up with outstretched arms and cried out in horror. Tho crowd was also horrorstricken. The bandmaster started a gay tune, which drowned their cries, while the ambulance men removed the bodies, and the crowd departed.

Oman is a Mohammedan State in SouthEast Arabia It has au area of 82,000 square miles and a population of 550,000. Tho capital is Muscat, whero there is a British Political Agent, Major S. P. Murphy. Tho ruler is the Sultan Soyyid Taimur bin Faisal bin Turki, who was born in 1880 and succeeded in 1913. Ho is in treaty relations with, and subsidised by, the Government of India. In 1913, at the end of tho reign of the last Sultan, there was a religious rising by tribes in tho interior, who choso their own spiritual ruler and they aro not yet under the Sultan's control.