AIR CRASH ECHO HEARD IN COURT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17780, 25 February 1926, Page 1

AIR CRASH ECHO HEARD IN COURT.

CROWN ASKS LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Aus. and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received February 25, 9.10 a.m.)) LONDON, February 24. An echo of the terrible aeroplane disaster at Croydon on Christmas Eve, 1924, was heard in the Probate Court, when the Crown applied for letters of administration in the estate of Archibald Sproston and for a declaration that he left no widow. Sproston and his wife and his uncle were killed in the crash. If the wife had survived her husband she would have been entitled to his estate, and if Sproston had survived his uncle he would have inherited £SOOO more. A model of the ’plane was exhibited in Court, and also photographs of, the actual WreckageEvidence submitted showed that the bodies were all in a heap, and Mrs Sproston was underneath with a deep bone wound in her forehead, resulting in laceration of the lobe of the brain, sufficient to cause instantaneous death. Her husband had a fractured pelvis,

which would not necessarily cause immediate. death.

A doctor, who was on the scene before the llames were subdued, gave evidence that the woman's body was the only one likely to have life, but he found no heartbeats. lie could not say who had died first. Another doctor, who had conducted a post-mortem examination, repeated the opinion that he had expressed at the inquest, that the wife had predeceased her husband. The hearing was adjourned.