SURVIVOR TELLS OF ’PLANE CRASH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18959, 4 January 1930, Page 11

SURVIVOR TELLS OF ’PLANE CRASH.

millionaire airman had lucky escape. (Special to the “Star.*') LONDON’, November 7. Six lives were lpst yesterday when a German air liner, an all-metal monoplane. which had just left Croydon for Berlin, crashed in fog in a wood at Foster Down, White Hill, near C aterhain, Surrey, and burst into flames. Tlje dead are;—

Pasengers.—Mr D. L. Jones, Lansdowne Road, Stock well. S.W.; Mr Herbert John Gaspar. aged forty-two, a Mincing Lane broker, of Petts Wood, near Orpington, Kent; Mr G. Milne, a Calcutta jute merchant. Crew. —Bruno Sehinka. aged thirtyeight, pilot; Willy Ulrich, aged thirtysix, mechanic; Heinrich Xiklas, aged thirty-one, wireless operator. The only survivors are LieutenantCommander Glen Kidston. .R.N.. the millionaire airman and racing motorist, and Prince Eugen SchaumbergLippe, assist ant pilot, a nephew of the ex-Kaiser’s sister, who lies i > a critical condition. Lieutenant-Commander Glen Kidston. R.X., one of the two survivors of the disaster, gave me last night (writes a “Daily Chronicle” representative) the full story of how, with his clothes on fire, he escaped through a hole in the aeroplane saloon, and. after a vain effort to save his fellow pas- j sengers, raced for assistance. _ ; When I called at his home in Grosvenor Square he was sitting up in bed j with his burned face swathed in a mask of cotton wool and bandages, through which his eyes and mouth could only just be seen. Ilis left hand was heavily bandaged. Up in an Air Taxi. After the crash he first telephoned to Crpydon Aerodrome to give news of the disaster, and afterwards tested his courage by going to Croydon, where he chartered an air taxi, and made a ten minutes’ flight with - Captain G. P. Plley, the well-known Imperial Airways pilot. This he did. he explained, to keep his flying nerve, just as in the R.A.F., after a crash, all flying men immediately take the air. Perhaps more remarkable still is the fact that Commander Kidston went under a serious operation last week, and had left his bed only the previous day. “ I was on mj' way to Amsterdam to keep a business appointment,” he said, puffing at a cigarette through his mask of bandages. A Good Stare. “ We left Cro>'don shortly before 10 am. The machine took off well, and we followed the usual course along C'aterham Yalle\% fl\’inj* at a height, according to the cabin altimeter, of about 300 metres (about 1000 ft). “ A few minutes later I noticed that we were flying less than 100 ft up, but it was so mist>' that e\'en then I could not see the ground. “ On two occasions the pilot had to pull his 4 stick ’ back sharply, and once we only just cleared some tree-tops. 44 Then I had a sensation of turning, as though the pilot Avas going back to Crojdon. Almost immediately afterwards there was a terrific crash-L-we had hit the top of a hill. Instinctively I grabbed the side of the cabin. Simulthe machine came to rest. In the Wrecked Cabin. 44 The cabin was in complete confusion, and I do not remember seeing any of the other passengers. I thought of fire, and saw flames breaking out. 44 Then I caught sight of a hole in the starboard side of the cabin. Wrenching mA-self free of the debris, I struggled* through the opening and on to the ground. My coat Avas on fire, and I rolled on the ground to put out the flames. “ The machine by this time Avas one mass of flames, Avhicii ntached the top of the trees. I Avent back, and attempted to get into 'the cabin again, first one one side and then on the other, but the heat was too. great. Telephoning for Help. 44 As I could see nothing but wreckage. and concluded that I Avas the only surviA-or. I ran down the hill to get assistance. 44 I found three boys, one of whom I sent to get his bicycle, with instructions to telephone for a doctor, an ambulance and the police. 44 A man then appeared, and took me to a house where there was a car, and they ga\e me a lift to a garage where by telephone I ascertained that the doctor and the ambulance had already been informed. 44 1 also rang up Croydon Aerodrome. Although the operator was told that the call was urgent. I got the wrong number, and there was some delav as well.” i At the. time of the crash, which was exactly 10.15, explained Commander Kidson, the machine appeared to be flying leA-el, all engines running normally. 44 It is a mystery to me,” he added, 4 *hoAv Prince Eugen Schaumburg-Lippe got out cf the machine. He was sitting next to me in the middle of the cabin, but I never saw him after the crash. He may hat-e got out of the same hole through Avhich I escaped.” Commander Kidson, who is a millionaire, is an airman, a well-known racing motorist, and a motor-boat pilot. He seems to make a specialitA’ of narroAv escapes. As a cadet on H.M.S Hogue, when that cruise-r was torpedoed in the North Sea in September 191-1, he was saA*ed after being in the water for two and a half hours. Last summer he crashed at 90 miles an hour while driving a racing car in the Ulster Grand Prix. and again escaped without a scratch Two years ago he was travelling in a motor speed-boat on the Solent at 47 miles an hour with his Avife and Prince and Princess Neroviski as passengers when the boat broke in two. After struggling in the sea for half an hour j the party were all rescued. Almost exactly a 3-ear ago he was flying to Kenya in the machine from | which Captain Loewenstein Avas killed j when the engines suddenly’ stopped in I mid-air, and a forced landing had to be ; made. But there again Commander • Kidson escaped unhurt.