AEROPLANE CRASH AT LINCOLN

«MACHINE BROKE UP IN THE AIR” CORONER HOLDS INQUESTS An inquiry was held in Christchurch yesterday in the Coroner’s Court before Mr F. F. Reid. S.M., into the deaths of Pilot Officer Walter Keith Webb and Leading Aircraftsman lan Campbell Mclntyre, which occurred at Lincoln on December 18. "The aircraft in which they were flying certainly broke up in the air, said -Flight Lieutenant F. L. Goldsmith, of a South Island station, “but 1 am not in a position to say what the primary cause was.”  Pilot Officer Webb was described as a fully qualified instructor, and Leading Aircraftsman Mclntyre was a pupil. The flight on which they were engaged when they were killed was a normal training flight, and the weather was good. Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel testified that the machine was airworthy and that it had been tested. Flight Lieutenant Goldsmith said that he had examined the wreckage, and he considered that several parts were faulty. This was possibly due, he added, to glueing when the aircraft was being manufactured in England. Mr Reid: That would not be apparent in any ordinary service examination?—No, it would not. It is apparent that the crash was due to some structural failure, but you cannot say what it was?—l cannot say just what it was. The machine * certainly broke up in the air, but I cannot sgy what the"primary cause of the fault was.

The Coroner found that these men had met their deaths from multiple injuries when flying in an aircraft which became uncontrollable and crashed. 

PRESS, VOLUME LXXIX, ISSUE 23887, 4 MARCH 1943, PAGE 6