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What's interesting to read / Re: On this Day (WWI aviation news), Vol. 2
« Last post by PJ Fisher on Today at 12:02:05 AM »Dangerous Business
Three tragic incidents headline today from the British home front. The first involves a rookie pilot who fatally crashed through a church roof. "Second Lieutenant Kenneth Wastell landed his De Havilland DH6 aircraft in Hemingford Meadow to ask for directions. Aiming for a night out in St Ives, he most likely intended to leave his plane at Wyton Airfield. Having been given guidance, he turned the plane around, revved up the engine, took off and crashed into the Parish Church spire. The Board of Enquiry that followed could find no evidence of any fault in the aircraft. Evening mist or blindspots caused by the biplane's wings were suggested as causes. Inexperience was another possible factor. Kenneth, only 19 years old, was killed in the crash". (via stives100yearsago.blogspot.com)
Read the full story at this brilliant site: https://stives100yearsago.blogspot.com/2020/11/st-ives-photo-album-1910-to-1919.html. And, here's a Youtube clip on this story, showing some surviving fragments of this plane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AQvGCcU__A.
(respectively from the Abergavenny Chronicle, 29 March 1918; the Cambridge Independent Press, and the Hunts Post, 31 March 1918):
(images via (via stives100yearsago.blogspot.com)
Three tragic incidents headline today from the British home front. The first involves a rookie pilot who fatally crashed through a church roof. "Second Lieutenant Kenneth Wastell landed his De Havilland DH6 aircraft in Hemingford Meadow to ask for directions. Aiming for a night out in St Ives, he most likely intended to leave his plane at Wyton Airfield. Having been given guidance, he turned the plane around, revved up the engine, took off and crashed into the Parish Church spire. The Board of Enquiry that followed could find no evidence of any fault in the aircraft. Evening mist or blindspots caused by the biplane's wings were suggested as causes. Inexperience was another possible factor. Kenneth, only 19 years old, was killed in the crash". (via stives100yearsago.blogspot.com)
Read the full story at this brilliant site: https://stives100yearsago.blogspot.com/2020/11/st-ives-photo-album-1910-to-1919.html. And, here's a Youtube clip on this story, showing some surviving fragments of this plane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AQvGCcU__A.
(respectively from the Abergavenny Chronicle, 29 March 1918; the Cambridge Independent Press, and the Hunts Post, 31 March 1918):
(images via (via stives100yearsago.blogspot.com)