FLYING DISASTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23591, 30 August 1938, Page 11

FLYING DISASTER

CRASH IN QUEENSLAND FIVE PEOPLE KILLED OTHERS CRITICALLY INJURED (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) BRISBANE, Aug. 29. (Received Aug. 29, at 11 p.m.) Four passengers and the pilot were killed to-dr.y when a dragon air liner owned by North Queensland Airways, crashed from a height of about 350 feet near Bundoo aerodrome, five miles from Innisfail. All the passengers except one belonged to Cairns. The dead are; — Henry Murtha, a well-known chemist. Miss Olga Headrick. Miss Elsie Walsh. Miss E. Costin. Benjamin Goodson, the pilot. C. R. Smith and Miss C. Flynn are critically injured. Alfred Wells and Arthur Valentine suffered minor injuries. Wells, who lives at Innisfail. is expected to recover. The aeroplane was en route from Brisbane to Cairns. Eye witnesses declare that the'engine appeared to stall and lost height. The pilot tried to land, but the plane nose-dived and fell like a rock, dense blue fumes being emitted from the exhaust. Murtha and Miss Headrick were killed instantly, while the three others died in hospital. The pilot was chief instructor at the Kingsford Smith Flying School in Sydney two years ago. He had a fine record. FOUR SWISS PLANES CRASH SIX PEOPLE KILLED ZURICH, Aug. 28. A Swiss observation squadron of five warplanes was flying to Lugano, when four planes crashed on a Grusberg mountainside in a thick fog. Six of the eight occupants were killed. The fifth plane escaped.