BOMBER CRASHES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23339, 6 May 1939, Page 10

BOMBER CRASH E S

TKAGe|| FOUR OCCUPANTS EYE-WITNESSES* ' [FROM OUR OWN 'SYDNEY, jJ Four men—the entire crew 'P' killed when a Royal Australia^*"?if Force Avro-Anson bomber was J at Riverstone, near its Richmond, in a crash, of wh5 :ll if cause is never likely to be known' "®l| The aeroplane, which was one ' fjl I first of the Avro-Anson type in 1 ll ®i| into Australia, was returning Richmond station from a na;i Ea training exercise flight. It was on the bank of a small creek aboot It yards north-west of the Riverstone. The men killed w l °'ll' Pilot-Officer Lloycl George aged 20; Pilot-Officer Maxell i/V Hickson, 22; Aircraftsman Duncan Knight, aged 31; and ?II craftsman Harry Clark, aged 28 Mr. Ray Taber, aged 21, w as nL. $ ing in a paddock a short distance f lS the scene. He said he heard t!0- ? a |B of the machine spluttering. peared to come from the exhaust •?" and the aeroplane appeared "Then the motors roared as th the pilot was trying to rfc They were still roaring when ft § machine struck the ground," jj e . |f "The machine mowed down the t P of trees and crashed in a small cl P ing. There was a second or If silence, and then J heard an ex ° D k I' sion. Some pieces of the aeron! (i! flew above the trees." iff Mr. Charles Fisher said: "I Saw ~ if aeroplane coming toward me. s j ;|| denly it dived and I thought 'it f" ff stunting;. then I realised that it J* ' too low down It temporarilv ifcjg 1 itself when about 250 feet'im ril veered to the left. Then I lost«! uli of it behind the trees. I then Q. crash." ft The aeroplane was. a mass of taiwu ft wreckage. The body of one manS II jammed against a sapling and'anotwfl body was huddled in the wreckage 1 Iff other two bodies were partly It in the ground. . S