PILOT GRAY KILLED IN MYSTERY CRASH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18985, 3 February 1930, Page 7

PILOT GRAY KILLED IN MYSTERY CRASH.

FURTHER INFORMATION ON FATALITY IN TEXAS,

Some days ago word was received of the death, as the result of an aeroplane crash, in Texas, of Mr Robert Hector Gray, formerly of Wellington, and his wife, an American girl, and three American business men on December 30. No details were then available, but further information has now been received by his relatives in Wellington (says the “Post”). The late Lieutenant Gray, an old boy of the South Wellington School, was a fighting pilot of the famous No. 74 British Fighting Squadron during the war, and after a brief residence in New Zealand following the Armistice, went to America to take up civil aviation, becoming assistant manager of Texas Air Transport Company, which position he held at the time of his death. Lieutenant Gray was regarded by the company and the people of Amarillo, headquarters of the company, as a thoroughly experienced and careful pilot, and the crashing of his machine was at the time of the dispatch of the mail for New Zealand unexplained. The machine was a six-seater passenger ’plane, practically new, and believed to be in perfect condition. He had flown the machine, with two other passengers as well, out to a, golf course about seven miles from Amarillo, and was apparently starting away on the return trip when the machine fell into a slow spin at an elevation of about 200 ft. Eye-witnesses stated that the pilot succeeded in straightening out, but flying speed was lost, and the, ’plane pancaked to an open space between fairways of the golf course, the wings tearing apart from the fuselage, Help was immediately forthcoming, but nothing could be done. Mrs Gray and one passenger were still alive, but dying, and the pilot and the other passengers were killed instantly. The mysr

terious aspect of the crash was that though the machine, a monoplane, had been brought out of the spin, it dropped very abruptly when again seemingly in flying trim. The accident was the more tragic as Lieutenant Gray’s mother, Mrs Douglas Gray, of Wellington, and his sister. Miss Phyllis Gray, were on a visit to Texas to see him, Mrs Gray, and their infant son. Mrs Hector Gray was only 20 years of age, and had flown many hours with her husband, and the baby had achieved distinction in the States as being the youngest and most experienced flying passenger, for he had with his mother and father had about 80 hours’ flying. At the time of the tragedy he was being looked after by Mr 3 Douglas Gray, and will in all probability be brought back by her to New Zealand.