DEATH OF AVIATOR
FAULTY PLANE WING. MELBOURNE, Friday. After an inquiry into the death of the aviator James Melrose on 6th July, the coroner returned a verdict that his aeroplane got out of control shortly after leaving Essendon iAerodrome, resulting in -the accidental death of a very competent airman. Expert evidence was given- that a structural defect in the port main wing developed while the plane was in flight, resulting in its complete destruction in midair. An examination of the wreckage revealed a fault in that wing.
Melrose was flying a Heston Phoenix cabin machine made in England. On early long-distance flights he used a Puss Moth and then a Pereival Gull, but bought the Heston Phoenix to make a goodwill flight from London to Adelaide under the auspices of the committee organising the centenary celebrations of South Australia. He dropped leaflets over centres of population on the route to advertise the centenary celebrations. In Australia he used the machine in air taxi work and on the last flight was taking a mining engineer to Darwin so that he could inspect gold-bearing areas in the Northern Territory.
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Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 August 1936, Page 5
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187DEATH OF AVIATOR Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 August 1936, Page 5
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