HEAVY LANDING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20891, 22 November 1937, Page 8

HEAVY LANDING

PARACHUTIST HAS NARROW ESCAPE JUST AVOIDS CRASH INTO WINTER GARDEN By Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND, November 21. Jumping out of an aeroplane when it was only 1000 feet above the Auckland Domain on Saturday morning, the well-known parachutist, G. W. Sellars, had a narrow escape from serious injury when he was able to sway his parachute just in time to avoid crashing through the glass roof of part of the Winter Garden. As it was he landed heavily into a small garden plot alongside the concrete path and jarred himself considerably. The jump was arranged as part of the Father Christmas gift distribution for children that had been organised by a prominent Auckland firm. Sellars was to land on the outer Domain as Father Christmas and was then to assist with the distribution of toys on the ground. He was taken up in an aeroplane piloted by Flight Lieutenant Allan and made his jump when the machine was only 1000 feet up in order to give the children an additional thrill. The aeroplane was so low that spectators, of whom there were several thousand on the nearby banks, were able to distinguish his form very clearly as he stood on the wing before jumping off.

There was a fairly strong southwesterly wind at 1000 feet, and this immediately blew Sellars from the direction he intended to take. Then as he came down into the shelter of the surrounding trees the still air caused him to drop more quickly and he landed very heavily. While the parachute was falling Sellars could be seen vigorously attempting to counteract the effect of the wind and so land on level ground. He obviously saw the danger of falling into the Winter Garden and fought to swing the parachute away from it. Until he was within a few yards of the roof, however, it seemed almost certain that he was going to fall in the glass, and it was only in the last few seconds that he was able to avoid it. He then disappeared from the view of the spectators and fell into the garden patch between the two hothouses. Only a few moments before two gardeners had been bedding plants there, and by the time Sellars had disentangled himself from the parachute and hundreds of children and adults had dashed up to see what had happened, the garden was almost wrecked.

Sellars, meanwhile, had found that his Father Christmas beard had been twisted awry by the fall and he limped into the shelter to fix it before returning to assist with the gift distribution, which he did in spite of his nervewracking experience.