TOP-DRESSING PILOT CRASHES SAME PLANE TWICE IN A MONTH

Wanganui Chronicle, 8 November 1950, Page 5

TOP-DRESSING PILOT CRASHES SAME PLANE TWICE IN A MONTH

AUCKLAND, Last Night (PA).— The pilot of a Tiger Moth aircraft used for aerial top-dressing escaped with concussion and superficial injuries when his plane crashed on a farm at Kohe-Kohe, 10 miles from Waiuku, this afternoon. He is Mr. John Thompson Barr, aged 26, single of Mission Bay. The machine was wrecked less than a month ago. Mr. Barr made a night forced landing at Te Puke with the same aircraft on a flight from Wanganui to Auckland on that occasion. He was uninjured and the plane undamaged. Mr Barr and his brother, Mr. G. F. Barr, who work as a company, had been engaged to do aerial top-dressing on several farms near Kohe-Kohe and were using a small paddock on the property of Mr. R Reynolds as s landing-strip. The paddock ends in a sudden and steep drop into a scrublined valley several hundred feet deep. Mr. Barr had flown from Mangere airfield on Monday ana made a number of successful trial take-offs and landings, leaving the aircraft grounded for the night. About 3 o’clock this afternoon he decided that air conditions were suitable and told Mr. Reynolds and a number of other farmers gathered to watch Ihe flight that he would make his last trial run. Coming in to land the plane appeared to evershot the landing strip which is marked with flags. One wing struck a fence post, spin!ering a flagpole, and the impact swung the machine over the brow of the hill. Mr. Barr was trapped in the cockpit when helpers rushed to the scene. He was still con- ' scious but dazed. . . He is in the Middlemore Hospital, where his condition is not serious.