Death of an Airman Read Online Free PDF

can’t understand it at all.”
    Mr. Vane’s Evidence.
    â€œI am a pupil at the Baston Aero Club. My name is Thomas Vane. I have had only two hours’ instruction. Furnace quite rightly considered me a slow pupil. He seemed to me to be rather irritable these last few days, but perhaps I should make any instructor irritable. Oddly enough, he span me in my last lesson. It frightened me. I don’t think it’s usual to do it to a beginner. Of course one has to learn it sooner or later before one goes solo. He made no attempt to correct the spin, and I honestly thought for a moment, when nothing happened, that he had lost consciousness. I got frightened and shoved the stick forward and pushed the rudder-bar over the opposite way, which I understood was the correct thing. Furnace didn’t say anything except that what I’d done was correct. Of course he may have been just testing my reaction in an emergency. He was a fine instructor and I’m told he always studied a pupil’s psychology. I haven’t the remotest idea why the machine crashed. I helped to free him from the fuselage. He was quite dead then, just as Captain Randall said. He must have died instantly, I think.”
    The Bishop’s Evidence.
    â€œI am the Bishop of Cootamundra. I am in England on leave. I have just joined the Baston Aero Club and have never flown. As I only saw Major Furnace once I cannot say whether he was his normal self or not. The machine fell behind a bank of trees, apparently out of control—but I know so little of these matters. I arrived a little time after the crash tender. Then he was quite dead.”
    Lady Laura Vanguard’s Evidence.
    â€œI saw the spin as I was looking up from a map in the lounge. I did not fully realize the machine had crashed until it did not come up again from behind the trees. Then I ran out and found Miss Sackbut and the Bishop about to drive over there and I joined them. As they said, Major Furnace, who was my instructor, was a wonderful pilot, and I can’t imagine such a thing happening unless there was something wrong with the machine.”
    The Technical Expert’s Evidence.
    â€œMy name is Felix Sandwich, Flying Officer in the Reserve of Air Force Officers. I am in the Department of the Inspector of Accidents in the Air Ministry. Under powers vested in the Secretary of State for Air I inspected the crash and took notes from various witnesses. There was nothing in the machine’s condition to account for the accident. The controls showed no trace of having jammed and there had been no structural failure before the impact. The impact was not severe—it rarely is in a spin. It is possible that the pilot tried to regain control at the last moment, for the machine took the main force of impact on the starboard wing, instead of the nose. As a result the shock was not severe, and if Major Furnace had been thrown clear he would probably have escaped with a shaking. It is hardly surprising that the safety-belt parted. It is meant to take only normal flying strains. No, Mr. Foreman, I do not agree that it would be a good plan to make it stronger, as it would do the pilot serious internal injury if he were thrown violently against its restraint. It was pure bad luck that Furnace was thrown against the edge of the dashboard so that his forehead struck it. He might have been thrown clear. He was evidently trapped by the telescoping of the longerons of the fuselage. Many pilots believe in loosening their safety-belts if they see a crash is inevitable, but Furnace (if he saw the danger at all) could only have realized it when a few feet above the ground, otherwise he could have regained control. This type of machine has never shown any vice and recovers easily from a spin. I can only attribute the accident to an error of judgment on the part of the pilot in delaying recovery from the spin. It is impossible to eliminate the human element. Most accidents of this