Air Pilot’s Peril

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 152, 14 September 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

Air Pilot’s Peril

Mr Harry Anderson, an aeroplane pilot, had a terrible experience over the Pontiac Mountains at dusk on May 14, when a man who had engaged him to fly to Pontiac from Roseville made a maniacal attack on him with a hammer while th(> machine was 2,()00ft. up in the air. One blow knocked out most of his teeth, another made him insensible (says the New York correspondent of The Times). “I must have been unconscious for some time —probably more than a minute,” said Mr Henderson afterwards. “When I came to, we were headed into a nose dive. I jerked the controls, tried to right the aeroplane, and managed to slow its pace. Just as I was swinging out of the dive I felt the wheels of the under-car riage touch tha ground for some distance, then the machine wont over on her nose.” The aeroplane landed in the grounds of the State hospital for the insane. It was demolished, but the pilot an ! nib passenger escaped s'rious injury. Members of the hospital staff said that they had seen the aeoplane while it was still high up twisting round, then give a sudden lurch, and then drop hundreds of feet. At about 200 ft. above the ground it appeared to right itself. The passenger has been identified as Mr Harry Frechette, a

“stunt pilot’’ from a Pacific coast aircircus. A letter he had written showed that he was deranged and expected early death.