CRASH IN MID-AIR

Taranaki Daily News, 31 December 1929, Page 9

CRASH IN MID-AIR

TWO FIGHTERS COLLIDE

ESCAPES BY PARACHUTE.

London, Nov. 14.

Two R.A.F. single-seater fighting machines belonging to No. 32 Squadron, Kenley, collided when over WaUington, Surrev, on November /, and crashed, eno of them in flames. The pilots (Flying Officer Collins and Sergeant White) made desperate parachute leaps from a height estimated at from 3000 to 5000 feet, and landed safely. Flying Officer Collins came down on a piece of waste ground near Croydon Aerodrome, nearly a mile from where his machine crashed, and Sergeant White landed in a cemetery, at Beddington. The former was helped to rise by°a local shopkeeper, to. whom he declared that his main purpose was to get back to Kenley in order to fly again as quickly as possible. By saving their Ijves by parachutes, the airmen automatically become members of the Caterpillar Club. For two airmen to become members through the same accident is unique. Thirty lives in the R.A.F. have now been saved by parachutes. One blazing machine fell on two houses, and, fortunately, none of the occupants was at home. The front of ono house was almost demolished, and? a hole was torn in the roof. A detached, petrol tank fell in a house and demol- . ished a bedroom. The owner, her sister, and her two-year-old baby were in, at the time, but they escaped injury.. : ; - It so happened that the disaster was witnessed, from the air, by Major C. C. Turner (aviation correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). Major Turner writes: — “In a comfortable cabin of a Junkers G 23, belonging to the Air Express Company, at a height of 1200 ft, enjoying the rarely permitted luxury of smoking . in an aeroplane, and able to converse without shouting, I was not in the frame of mind to expect a glimpse of tragedy. When it came it was difficult at first to believe the evidence, of my senses. At my sfde was an artist pencilling in a sketching-book his impressions- of landscape and cioudscape. Just before we went up we had seen a flight of three R.A.F. single-seater fighters (“Gamecocks” apparently), in formation, living south-westerly at a height' of about 4000 feet. But I had forgotten them. Suddenly one of our four passengers exclaimed, ‘They collided’.” “Looking steadily I could see that to each parachute descending a man was suspended, and I knew’ that each had escaped from extreme peril by means of the ‘lifebelts of the air.’ Each man, almost in the instant of the collision, had thrown himself out of his wrecked tha-L chine, dropped clear, and then had piffled. < the grip at his waist, thus ' permitting . the parachute to fill out in. the rush of? air. “They were floating gently down/4 their only danger now due to the possibility in that populous region of falling on to houses, or glass, or being dragged over rough ground. We were slowly circling, and I did not instantly catch* sight again of the abandoned ma-/ chines. Then I saw only one of them, ' and it was now descending in a flat spin, probao.y with damaged controls rand in that manner it plunged headlong into a house. I cannot say for certain whether this machine was on fire before*? it struck, but the moment it hit the;' house and crashed flames leaped out and dark smoke poured out. This we watched for some time. The parachutes;! now looked very tiny in the distance,J •hiit one appeared to touch ground safely, close /,to ai !cpmetery. The other disappeared from my view beyond some> trees.” -