ELEVEN DEAD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23135, 6 September 1938, Page 11

ELEVEN DEAD

TRAGIC_CRASH HOUSES IN FUMES I STRUCK BY MACHINE I 1 j EXPLOSION OF PETROL j 25 PEOPLE INJURED By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright I (Received September (1, 12.-10 a.m.) j LONDON, Sept. 5 j Eleven people were killed, 25 others were injured, and three houses were set on fire, when a ftoyal Air Force aeroplane crashed on top of a residence at Edmonton, Middlesex, and burst into flames. The machine then bounced on to houses across the road, on which the petrol tank exploded as pedestrians scattered. Those killed instantly were the pilot, and a woman and two children, ono of whom was killed on the road. Mr. Edward Letch succumbed in hospital. His brother, James, and l.'i others, including Mr. Benjamin Saunders and bis son, Roy, whose house was completely destroyed, and five members of the Callaghan family, occupants of an adjoining dwelling, which was badly damaged, were picked up in a critical condition. Mr. James Letch, Dennis Callaghan, aped 1.3, and Terence Callaghan, aged three, died in hospital. John Eusden succumbed from burns received when saving others. The rescuers did not spare themselves in attempting to extinguish the petrolsoaked clothes men, women and children, fleeing from the inferno, which were blazing like torches. Hundreds of children were playing in a park close by and saw the crash. One boy, Jimmy Taut, was killed as the machine bounced across the road after nose-diving on to the roof of his parents' house. It struck a pair of houses opposite, in one of which the Saunders family were having lunch, strewing wreckage in the garden and flinging the engino into an adjacent doorway. This ignited the building, fatally burning Mrs. Saunders and her son, Derek, aged eight, and severely burning the husband and two other children, also a Boy Scout, who had entered to give help, and neighbours who were met by a blast of flame after rushing from their dwellings. Mr. Saunders died in hospital last

night. The aeroplane had been piloted by Sergeant S. 11. Morris.