DEATH AT 44,000 FEET

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16534, 29 December 1927, Page 13

DEATH AT 44,000 FEET

AERONAUT’S STRANGE FATE. NEW YORK, Nov. 9. While he was at a height of 44.0C0ft. above the earth death claimed Captain Hawthorne Gray on Friday, it is believed, when the Army aeronaut accidentally severed the oxygen tube attached to ‘bis mask while attempting to establish a new altitude record in a free balloon.

Captain Gray’s body was found in the mountains of Tennessee yesterday. It had come down in the 'balloon basket, with the mask still covering the face of the dead man and the oxygen tube, cut by a. knife, lying near by. The .balloon’s barograph indicated that Gray had reached '44,000ft., and the entries in the ing recorded 40,000 ft. when the last simd bags were thrown out. An empty oxygen container had been cut loose from the basket and bad a parachute attached, and Gray evidently intended to throw it out in order further to lighten his load. It is believed that his knife slipped while he was cutting away the superfluous equipment and severed the air tube, causing asphyxiation Captain Okay ascended Horn Scott Field, at Belleville, Illinois, on Friday, and' the balloon landed about 300 miles away. It was his third attempt to break the altitude record, and both his previous trials nearly ended fatally.