TWO DEAD IN AIR CRASH

Taranaki Daily News, 17 June 1932, Page 7

TWO DEAD IN AIR CRASH

WRECK OF JONES MACHINE

BUILT FOR TASMAN FLIGHT

SPEEDSTER’S FATAL RIDE

BODIES TERRIBLY MANGLED

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 7.30 p.m. Sydney, June 16. Built for a projected flight to New Zealand the Jones monoplane crashed at Quakers’ Hill, near Parramatta, to-day. The two occupants, Roy Mitchell, of Mosman, and Arthur Barnes, a prominent speed motorist, were killed. Mitchell had been testing the machine for some time and he took Barnes as a passenger for a joyride. Eye-witnesses saw the machine turn sideways and then fall in a steep dive into a paddock where Mitchell had a hut for camping during the tests. The engine was buried in the earth and the fuselage was a crumpled, broken mass. The occupants were killed instantly. Every bone in their bodies seemed to be broken.

A party, including Don Harkness and the designer of the plane, Mr. L. R. Jones, dashed to the spot and dragged the men from the wreckage, an iron rod having completely pierced Barnes’ body. The men’s features were unrecognisable. The machine had behaved splendidly hitherto. It was the aeroplane which was forced down on June 5 at Stuart Town during an experimental flight to Bourke, Mitchell and Jones then being the occupants. They were missing for two days. The engine was a Harkness Hornet of 110 horsepower.