GRIM FLYING TRAGEDY.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13313, 21 July 1936, Page 2

GRIM FLYING TRAGEDY.

COLLISION IN MID-AIR. According to evidence at a double inquest in the aerodrome at Grantbarn, Lincolnshire, recently so violent were a mid-air collision and the subsequent. explosion that the parachute of one or the victims opened and carried the dead body to earth. In all probability the intense concusion automaticaly “pulled” the rip cord. The dead men were: Acting Pilot Officer G. C. R. George, aged 21, of Hove; and Leading Aircraftsman P. J. Pugh, a native of Monmouthshire. Roth were under instruction at No>. 3 Flying Training School and each bad had experience of solo flying in “teacher’” aeroplanes and in service type m a chi nes. They went, up in separate machines to practise steep and medium turns and landings, and the opinion of experts, must have been killed instantly when, the planes collided. James Huckerby, foreman platelayer of Oolsterwortli, stated that lie saw the two machines at approximately 1000 ft*:, travelling in apposite directions. They banked and seemed to fly into each other. There was -in explosion, and one of the planes corkscrewed to the ground. Ho saw a pilot coming down by parachute and apparently make a perfect, landing. Huckerby ran to where the first machine crashed and found Pugh dead in the cockpit. He thou looked for the man with the parachute, and found him. in a wood lying dead on the ground, with his parachute lodged in the trees. A verdict of “accidental death” was returned in each case.