Flaming Wreck

The day after the report of the Air Mail fatality came news of a terrible accident at the Croydon airdrome in London. A De Haviland passenger airplane, carrying a pilot and seven passengers, had scarcely risen into the air on its way to Paris, when gusty weather caused trouble and a nose dive carried the plane straight into the ground from a height of two or three hundred feet. As the craft struck, the gasoline tank burst, and in a moment there was a rush of flames which rose 60 ft. into the air. A fire engine was on the spot in six minutes, but firemen and mechanics with axes could do nothing but watch the flames because of the intense heat. The seven passengers and the pilot must have died instantaneously. Their clothes were gone and their bodies black when disinterred from the wreckage.