AIR TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 January 1940, Page 3

AIR TRAGEDY

BOMBER’S CRASH IN DARK

WRECKAGE OVER WIDE AREA. SYDNEY, December 20. Five members of the Royal Australian Air Force were killed when an Avro Anson bomber crashed near the Richmond aerodrome, New South Wales, during a reconnaissance flight at 1.30 a.m. on Monday. I The victims were:—Flight-Lieutenant Arthur Morehouse Watkins, aged 25, of Sydney; Flight-Lieutenant Hugh Banhan Horner, aged 27, of Melbourne; Flying-Officer Henry Parker Fitzgerald, aged 21. of Tasmania; Flying-Of-ficer Malcolm Musgrave Mclnnes, aged 21, of Melbourne; and Leading-Air-craftsman Leonard J. King, aged 23, of Brisbane. The bomber arrived at Richmond fom Victoria on Friday and was to have flown back to Point Cook, Victoria, early on Monday morning with a full crew, making a night reconnaissance of the country on the way. With the five men on board, the machine took off from the aerodrome shortly before 1.30 a.m. and as it disappeared in the darkness the engines appeared to be running well. Another aircraft took off a few minutes later, but the ground staff at the aerodrome heard a roar and then a crash in the direction taken by the first aeroplane. It took R.A.A.F. ambulance and fire crews almost half an hour to locate the wreckage. The aeroplane was not seen in its dive to earth. The noise of the crash was all rescue parties had to direct them. The aeroplane had been seen to circle. Then its navigation lights disappeared in a cloud bank. Aided by torches, members of rescue parties first came to a wrecked fence. A deeplyploughed track led them to the wreckage on a golf course. Four bodies had been hurled from the machine. One engine was torn off. and some of its components were found over a radius of ICO yards. An examination at dawn showed that the crash had occurred with both engines at full throttle. Pieces of the aeroplane were scattered over -a wide area, parts were wrapped round the posts of a fence, and one engine had ploughed a hole in the ground. The machine was so badly wrecked that nothing could be seen to give a clue to the cause of the crash.

Flight-Lieutenant Watkins, who was the only child of Dr. Watkins, of Roseville, Sydney, was to have been married on March 2. His engagement was announced on November 1. FlightLieutenant Horner, who was a son of Mr H. G. Horner, manager of Station 2GB and rhe Macquarie Broadcasting Network, joined the R.A.A.F. in September this year. Previously he served three years with the R.A.F. in England and in India, and for some time was a flying officer on the Sydney-Singapore lerial service. He was married about two years ago.