STOLEN PLANE CRASHES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18378, 21 April 1934, Page 6

STOLEN PLANE CRASHES

ACCIDENT AT MANGERS OCCUPANTS MISSING “FLYING TO AUSTRALIA” (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. A Gipsy Moth aeroplane was stolen from a hangar at the Auckland Aero Club’s Mange re' aerodrome at about 4 o’clock this-morning. It was found after daylight, crashed in an estuary on the fringe of the flying field. There wore blood marks in the cockpit, and footprints in the mud for some distance around the estuary. A note found at the hangar said: “We arc borrowing one of your planes and flying to Australia immediately.— C. Johnson and Dawson. P.S.: We are taking enough petrol to get there.” Up to noon the men had not been found, although the police were searching the district. One blade of the 'plane’s propeller was broken, and other slight damage was done by a crash into the mud of the estuary.

It. is believed that the .men responsible are two young men who were hanging a 1 bout the aerodrome yesterday, and were given a meal. Nobody heard the plane-engine except the four-year-old son of Flight-Lieutenant Allan, the club’s instructor. He called to his father, 'but the latter thought the boy was talking in his sleep. Shortly after both heard a c:ash, and began a search, 'but it was not. until daylight that they found the plane.

A tin of red -paint was found in the cockpit, indicating that the thieves intended to repaint the fuselage. Goggles, helmets, and also a pea rifle are missing from the hangar. “They could not have known much about flying,” said Lieut. Allan. “They apparently started off into the wind ail right, but they had no chance of getting far without first warming up the engine. The machine either stalled, or they opened up the throttle and choked the engine.” Though the thieves filled the -plane’s petrol tank from the club’s bowser, its capacity ol' 19 gallons- would only have carried it 240 miles, even in still air.

Aero Club officials are sceptical as to tho Intention of the thieves to fly to Australia.