DOGGED BY ILLLUCK.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 8 April 1927, Page 9

DOGGED BY ILLLUCK.

Accident to Italian Aviator.

seaplane damaged by fire

By Cable—Press Association—Copyright Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. NEW YORK, April 6.

Messages from Rooseveldt Dam, Ari zona, state that Marquise Do Pinedo *s flight ended to-day, when his seaplane, Santa Maria, caught fire as she waa refuelling there, preparatory to hopping off for San Diego.

Do Pinedo and his crew are safe but the machine is a total loss. Immediate efforts will bo made to raise the engine which is resting at the bottom of Roosevelt Lake, at a depth of sixty feet .

BURST INTO FLAMES.

EXPLOSION PRECEDES FIRE

By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. NEW YORK, April 6.

De Pinedo’s flight was halted at Roosevelt Lake, Arizona, when a fire destroved his giant twin motored monoplane.

De Pinedo was talking to newspaper men on the shore when a sudden biast was heard on the lake, at the landing buoy, and the big ship was instantly a masis of flames. Mechanics adjusting the motor in preparation for the next leg of the flight leaped overboard and swam to safety, while the plane burned furiously. Nobody was injured.

De Pinedo had come ashore only a short time previous to the disaster. He had stayed with the craft in the middle of the lake while the mechanics tuned up the engines and began refuelling with three hundred gallons of petrol.

The blast occurred just as the airman was outlining his plans for proceeding to San Diego immediately on a non-stop flight of four hundred miles.

It is presumed that some gasolene being poured into the fuel tanks dripped on to part of the heated engine causing the explosion.

AMERICA TENDERS REGRETS,

ASSISTANCE TO AVIATOR

OFFERED,

By Cable—Prose Association—Copyright, Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.

(Received April 7, 9.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, April 6

The assistant secretary to the War Division offered Marquis De Pinedo the full use of a United States army plane, equipment and personnel, to replace the burned plane, and so enable him to continue his flight till the Italian replacement plane can be shipped. The War Department also cabled its regrets at the accident to Signor Mussolini. Marquis De Pinedo thanked the War Department, but will wait the arrival of a new plane from Italv. before resuming the flight.