AERIAL DANGERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19845, 20 May 1927, Page 3

AERIAL DANGERS

FLYING OVER CITIES DISCUSSION IN MELBOURNE. The recent aerial disaster during the pageant in connection with the Duke of York’s visit has provoked discussion in Melbourne ac to the danger of flying at low heights over the heads of dense crowds in the city. It has also evoked much criticism as to the wisdom of allowing stunting over city streets. It is true that tho airmen whose machines collided were not stunting; that they were simply dipping in salute when the smash occurred?. But their machines fell near very densely-thronged thoroughfares. Tho question that is raised in everyone’s mind is: What would have happened had the machines crashed? on a crowded thoroughfare? It is appalling to think what a terrible loss of life that would have involved. A big crowd densely packed in a confined space would have had no chance of escape if an aerial collision occurred immediately over their headq. Think what havoc a machine weighing two and a-half tons could wreak in its swift fall to earth. The airmen assert that there was no danger to the public by low flying. But the public’s point of view is different.