Fatal Air Crash At Lae

Young Couple and Pilot Die

WHILE making a test-flight near Lae, New Guinea, on March 25, a Hudson aircraft crashed into a house, killing a young man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs.

Stanley Flarey, The pilot, Harold Gibson-Lee. DPC, was badly injured and died in Lae hospital 10 days later. Colin Wren and Jack Brown, two engineers who were in the Hudson, were shot from the tail, which broke off, and were uninjured.

The plane belonged to Mandated Air lines. Trouble appeared to develop right after take-off on a test flight and when about 400 feet above Lae drome, bla"k smoke was seen to issue from one of the aircraft’s motors. The pilot made a low curved approach back towards the strip, but the plane seemed to get out of con trol, ploughing through a clump of bam boo which tore off a wing. It then careered across the adjacent road, wrecking a truck. It appears to have been at this stage that the roof of the cockpit was torn off, Gibson-Lee hurled out and the two engineers shot from the tail.

The Hudson then swerved into the house, under which Mr. and Mrs. Flarey were standing, and burst into flames. The voung couple were badlv injured and burned. Mrs. Flarey died 20 minutes later in hospital; her husband died the follow ing afternoon.

Gibson-Lee held the rank of Wing- Commander in the RAAF during the war.

He won the Air Force Cross for making blind-flying tests and the DPC for opera tions in the Battle of France.