AEROPLANE TRAGEDY

Southland Times, Issue 18990, 11 July 1923, Page 7

AEROPLANE TRAGEDY

SIX KILLED IN CRASH. ’ A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION A terrific explosion is stated by witnesses to have preceded the crash in flames of the giant French aeroplane between Beauvais and Amiens recently, when six people lost their fives. 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 of,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 envelope the machine, and what they next saw was a flaming body hurling downwards through 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. The motors were buried deep in 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 before the face as if they were making an instinctive movement to shield their eyes from the terrible fate towards which they must have known they were rushing. Only the mechanic escaped the flames. His body, however, was terribly battered. The 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 the dead, whose bodies were surrounded by lighted candle*-