AEROPLANE TRAGEDY,

Otago Witness, Issue 3619, 24 July 1923, Page 41

AEROPLANE TRAGEDY,

SIX KILLED IN CRASH. A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION. WINGS BREAK IN MID-AIR. A terrific explosion is stated by witnesses to have preceded the crush in flames of the giant French aeroplane between Beauvais and Amiens recently, when six people lost their lives. One witness says that the machine fell almost vertically from a height of more than 2000 ft into a wheat field 500 yards from the village ot Monsures. and a hundred yards from the railway line. Its two wings, becoming detached, were hurled outwards, and landed a considerable distance away. The two landing-wheels of the machine were picked up intact on the railway line. The blazing aeroplane, with its human burden, appeared* to rush through the air at the speed of a meteor. Peasants state that after the explosion the aeroplane nose-dived and burst into flames. Thick black smoke then began to envelop the machine, anil what they next saw was a tlarmng body hurtling downthrough the air at a tremendous speed. When the horrified onlookers reached the spot at which the aeroplane had fallen, they found a heap of twisted, smouldering wreckage. r i lie motors were buried deep iu the soil, which had been churned up within a radius of 20 yards. The bodies of the occupants, burned and otherwise injured beyond recognition, were dragged from beneath the smoking mass. In nearly every case the victims’ arms were raised above the face as if they were making an instinctive movement to shield their eyes from the terrible fate toward which they must have known they were rushing Only the mechanic escaped the flames. His body, however, was terribly battered. r ihe bodies were taken to the village in wheelbarrows by the peasants, and were afterwards placed in the Chapel of the Virgin in the village church. Here peasants remained all night praying for tho dead, whose bodies were surrounded by lighted candles.