FATAL CRASH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 122, 25 May 1936, Page 7

FATAL CRASH

PAT O’HARA DEAD Accident in New South Wales AIRMAN INCINERATED lßy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright! Received Alay 24, 7.5 p m. SYDNEY, May 24. Brief news was received in Sydney this afternoon of the tragic death of the aviator, W. M. (Pat) O’Hara, who crashed shortly after taking oif at Eumungerie, 315 miles west of Sydney. It is reported that the ’plane caught fire and O’Hara was incinerated. Since leaving Sydney on tha first stage of a leisurely flight to •Java, Mr. O’Hara had been staying on a sheep station, the property of Mr. Justice Boyce's son, between Dubbo and Narromine. Mr.' O’Hara had been staying with Mr. R, E. Boyce, son of Mr. Justice Boyce, 40 miles from Dubbo. His Klemm Eagle ’plane was parked a mile away in a paddock, whither he motored this morning with a party of friends, including the wife of Mr. Justice Boyce. Mr. O’Hara took off for Dubbo, where, he intended to pick up a hat and continue to Cootamundra, intending to lunch with a fellow-airman, Mr. Butler. The machine rose 200 feet and circled and Mr. O’Hara waved farewell. He banked sharply and immediately the ’plane nose-dived to earth and burst into flames. Mr. O’Hara was thrown four feet from the machine but was not out of reach of the flames. He was soon a human torch. His friends were unable to approach owing to the heat but finally dragged him away with the branch of a tree. An examination of the body revealed that manj r bones were broken and he had received injuries to the head which themselves, it is thought, had proved fatal. The body, which was terribly burned, will be brought to Sydney awaiting relatives’ instructions with regard to burial. Air. W. AL “Pat” O’Hara, who mot his death in a tragic aeroplane crarh in Australia during the week-end, will be remembered by a number of people in Wanganui whom he took for flighm in his Klemm Eagle low-wing monoplane. Air. O’Hara, after his successful solo erosing of the Tasman, made an aerial tour of the Dominion, during which he carried out passenger flights in aid of the funds of the Returned. Soldiers’ Association. Air. O’Hara spent two days at the Wanganui Airport and a large number of city residents went aloft with him, with tho result that, tho Wanganui R.B.A. funds benefited by £7 .’2s.