JUMP FROM PLANE

Taranaki Daily News, 4 March 1935, Page 5

JUMP FROM PLANE

YOUNG COUPLE’S SUICIDE DU BOIS SISTERS COPIED ALL THE SEATS BOOKED BASLE AERODROME CASE By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Basle, March 6. Karl Grieder, aged 25, a school teacher, and his sweetheart Joeri, a sweetshop employee, to-day committed suicide by jumping a thousand feet from an aeroplane. A committee had earlier examined Grieder regarding trust funds for distribution to aged people in his village, Lausen. Instead of returning to the village he had tea with Joeri at the Basle aerodrome and hired an aeroplane. Joeri opened the door and jumped out over Lausen while Grieder was speaking to the pilot. Grieder immediately followed. The mutilated bodies were found 150 feet apart. The pilot returned to Basle at top speed and informed the police. The lovers’ leap was almost identical with that of the Du Bois girls, but the Basle pilot was a horrified witness of the jump to death and was unable to leave the controls. Both Grieder and Joeri were unmarried. They paid for all four seats in order to have the plane to themselves. They jumped seventeen minutes after the start. The girl hesitated a moment at the door of the machine, but Grieder followed while she was still in the air.