ACTOR’S CRASH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17740, 29 March 1932, Page 10

ACTOR’S CRASH

“BORROWED” PLANE FIRST SOLO FLIGHT J MELBOURNE, March 19. Tiie unconquerable desire of Mr. Campbell Copelin, the love actor . m many recent .J. C. Williamson plays, to see the opening of the Sydney Bridge led to the unauthorised removal of an Aero Club Moth plane VHUKM from the club’s hangars at Essendon at daybreak to-day. The plane is now a tangled wreck on the Sandridge golf links at Port Melbourne, and Mr. Copelin, who is a married man with. two children, is in Melbourne Hospital in a critical condition. He is believed to have suffered a fractured spine, but the exact nature of his injuries will • not be known until an X-ray examination has been made No one s<W the plane leave Essendon, but at 6 a.m. it circled over the San|lridge golf links at Port Melbourne, flying low, and had just succeeded in missing the coal wharves when it crashed into a bin bush on the links and turned over.

It is not known whether the engine has been damaged. The four wings are broken, the undercarriage is a twisted mass, half the body has been torn off, the tail ripped away, and the remains of the Moth are lying in sand.

On each of his visits to Melbourne with theatrical companies, Copelin has been a constant visitor to the Essendon aerodrome.

He has done a considerable amount of flying, but has never before attempted.a solo flight. The machine, which was removed from the Aero Club’s hangars, was the last used by club members last night, so that it was filled with petrol, and was ready to take the air. Together with five other machines, it was locked up about 8.30 last night,, and although the club’s engineer lives in a cottage a few' hundred yards from the hangars, ho did not hear anything in the night to cause him to suspect that unauthorised persons were moving about the drome.

When he went outside this morning ho saw the hangar doors open,, and at once noticed that a plane was missing. * Mr. Copelin, 31, who lived in Clarendon street, East Melbourne, is well known in the capital cities as an actor of considerable merit He recently caused a sensation by his remarkable portrayal of the drunken lover iff “As Husbands Go.”, He was also successful as the detective in “The Ghost Train.” Some time ago he fell from the Adelaide express while on his way to Melbourne to take the leading part in a Williamson drama, and later . caused some consternation by jumping into, the St. Kilda baths while fully clothed in a new suit.