AEROPLANE CRASHES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 177, 29 July 1932, Page 8

AEROPLANE CRASHES

TRAGEDY IN ENGLAND. PILOT AND PRINCE KILLED. LONDON, July 27. Bruce, the twenty-one-year-old son of Alfred Bossom, Conservative member for Maidstone, who recently decided that he could not sacrifice his recordbreaking for marriage to a Knightsbridge girl, tragically ended his career yesterday when piloting an aeroplane which crashed near Farnham. He and the passengers, one being Prince Otto Erbach Fuerstenan were all killed. They were taking Prince Otto as their guest on a pleasure flight from Heston to Southampton, and encountered bad weather. An eye-witness saw the plane emerge suddenly from the clouds. Then there was a terrific explosion. The machine was badly twisted, FURTHER DETAILS Received July 28, 8.45 p.m LONDON, July 28. The crash occurred near Chart, not far from the houses of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Philip Snowden. The bodies were widely separated when found several hundred feet from the wreckage and were so mutilated that they were only identifiable by articles in the pockets. Only a few soldiers and pedestrians witnessed the accident. An officer of the Border Regiment saw the 'plane emerge from the clouds wingless, like a flying bedstead. He Was horrified to see the fuselage break up and the bodies fall out, followed by the petrol tank. The News-Chronicle calls attention to the extraordinary similarity between the Bossom crash and the Meopham disaster on July 21, 1931, when, following an explosion, fragments fell from a thick cloud. Mrs. Bossom often went on flights with her son. Prince Otto was aged 23 and was making his first visit to England. It is believed that the crash was due to lightning striking the 'plane. It was Bossom's ambition to break the record to South Africa and Aus tralia and cross the Atlantic. He narrowly escaped death in May, 1931. when he crashed in Cheshire and (he machine took fl >e.