Air Tragedy Over Upminster
In 1935 Upminster was in the news when an air tragedy made the front pages of the National Press. The report from the files of the Essex Police reveals a fascinating story behind the headlines.
On Thursday 21st February of that year, two workmen noticed an aircraft, passing overhead at about 5,000ft.
“Suddenly, what looked like two packages fell away from it and fluttered to the ground like sheets of paper”. They gathered speed and struck the ground with a terrific thud a little distance away.
The workmen rushed to the spot to find the bodies of two girls, lying together, face down and with their arms about each other. One had a watch that was still going. The plane flew on.
Shortly afterwards,the Captain of the aircraft, John Kirton of Hillman Airways was flying over the Channel Coast en route to Le Bourget, Paris, when they ran into air turbulence. Alone in the cockpit, he couldn’t leave his seat, so he turned and opened the communicating door to the main cabin to ask if his passengers were comfortable. To his horror, the cabin was empty.
Captain Kirton radioed to Croydon and headed back to Essex Airport, now known as Stapleford Tawney.
On landing it was discovered that the passenger entry door was partly open and had apparently only been held in place by the slipstream. In the cabin was a lady’s shoe, a whisky bottle and sealed letters addressed to the girls parents.
The victims were found to be the Du Bois sisters, Jane and Elizabeth,aged 20 and 23, daughters of Coert Du Bois, The American Consul in Naples.
A possible explanation of the events could be that the Du Bois sisters had become close friends of two Royal Air Force Officers, Flying Officer John A C Forbes and Flight Lieutenant Henry L Beatty (a half brother of Earl Beatty).
Both were part of a nine-man crew killed in a flying boat crash in Sicily on 15th February, six days earlier.
An inquest concluded that the door mechanism was not faulty and the letters found in the cabin indicated that the Sicilian air crash, triggered a period of severe depression for both girls.
The Coroner’s opinion was that it was improbable that the door could have opened accidentally, so great was the pressure of the slipstream, and suggested that it must have needed the combined strength of the two girls to have forced it. The sisters appeared to have taken a last drink together, then, clasped hand in hand their weight was thrown against the door, which opened slowly under their combined weight. As they plunged out, one lost a shoe.
They fell to the ground near the junction of Rushmere Ave and Springfield Gardens (see arrow on photograph).
By Richard Moorey.
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