BLAZING AEROPLANE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20821, 13 March 1931, Page 8

BLAZING AEROPLANE.

CRASH ON POWER CABLES.

PILOT'S LUCKY ESCAPE.

MONTE CARLO WINNINGS LOST,

A former Cambridge undergraduate what had piloted a Moth aeroplane from Nice, and intended to land at Heston. near Hounslow, had a remarkable escape from death on February 2, when his machine collided with four high-tension electric poxver cables, carrying 33,000 volts,, afc Dagenham, Essex, and crashed into a field in flames: For ten minutes the whole of the electric lights in the district were extinguished. The aeroplane was destroyed by fire before the Dagenham Fire Brigade arrived, but the pilot, Mr.. N. C. Mayers, aged 21, who had been afc Jesus College, Cambridge, crawled oufc uninjured, and saved a number of important books and documents from the flames. When the brigade and an ambulance dashed up they found a very calm young man filming the burning machine with a cine-camera, which he had saved from the wreckage. "I succeeded," said Mr. Mayers in an interview, "in exposing about 50ft. of film before the machine was burnt oufc. I intend to gefc it developed and show it on the screen to my friends. I ] eft Franco at 9.30 in the morning and re-fuelled afc Le Bourget and afc Lvmpne," he said. " I took off rather hurriedly at Lympne to reach Heston before nightfall. " In my haste I omitted to strap niy!>elf in. To this I owe my life. Had I been strapped in the cockpit I should have perished in the flames. My engine was not running too well, so I decided to land at Dagenham. It was getting dark and I did nofc see the cables until I flew into them about 30ft. from the ground.

" There was a terrific blue flashyards long—and little blue flames played all round the machine, like hundreds of squibs going off. Then came the crash. The celluloid windscreen caught fire just in front of my face and flames were coming round my legs. I pushed the metal flap above my head and scrambled cutin the nick of time.

" I managed to rescue part of my luggage, my log-book, observation records and my cine-camera from the rear locker. A moment later the Moth was a mass of flames. I shall go to Cambridge to-mor-row to prove that my nerve is all right." Sir. Mayers is a member of the Cambridge University Air Squadron, and it is a regulation that after a crash a flier

must go up again. Mr. Mayers had been spending a fortnight's holiday at Monte Carlo with his mother. " I had been lucky enough to win a few pounds at the tables," he said, " but my winnings—about £15 —were burned with the machine. I have had to borrow money from the police to get to London."

The airman was born in Sydney. His father, the late Mr. G. E. Mayers., was a planter in Kenya, East Africa. The voung airman, who went down from Jesus College., last term, has been flying for two years.