1910-11-18-tacoma-daily-ledger-p1-pilot-dies
November 18, 1910 Tacoma Daily Ledger Page 1:
AEROPLANE FAILS 500 FEET IN AIR
Flyer Fights Coolly and Grimly to Last Second to Regain Control of Machine.
EVERY BONE IS BROKEN
Souvenir Fiends Fight for Dead Man's Clothes, One Taking Bloody Splinter From Body.
DENVER, Nov 17.—With one wing tip of his machine crumpled like a piece of paper, Ralph Johnstone, the brilliant young aviator, holder of the world’s altitude record, dropped like a plummet from a height of 500 feet into the enclosure at Overland park aviation field and was instantly killed.
When the spectators crowded about the enclosure reached him, his body lay beneath the engine of the biplane with the white planes that had failed him in his time of need wrapped about it like a shroud. Nearly every bone in his body was broken.
He had gambled with death once too often, but he played the game to the end, fighting coolly and grimly to the last second to regain control of his broken machine.
Fresh from his triumphs at Belmont park, where he had broken the world’s record for altitude with a flight of 3,714 feet, Johnstone attempted to give the thousands of spectators, who stood with craned necks to watch him, an extra thrill with his most daring feat, the spiral glide, which had made the Wright aviators famous. The spectators got their thrill, but it cost Johnstone his life.
Brace Gives Way.
The fatal flight was the second John- stone had made this afternoon. In the first flight, when he was in the air with Hoxsey and Brookins, he had gone through his usual program of dips and glides with his machine apparently under perfect control. Then Johnstone rose again and after a few circles of the course to gain height, headed toward the foothills. Still ascending, he swept back in a big circle, and as he reached the north end of the enclosure, he started his spiral glide. He was then at an altitude of about 800 feet. With his planes tilted at an angle of about 90 degrees, he swooped down in a narrow circle, the aeroplane seeming to turn almost in its own length.
As he started the second circle the middle spur which braces the left side of the lower plane gave way and the wing tips of both upper and lower planes folded up as though they had been hinged. For a second Johnstone attempted to right the plane by warping the other wing tip. Then the horrified spectators saw the plane swerve like a wounded bird and plunge straight toward the earth.
Gritty Fight to Right Machine.
Johnstone was thrown from his seat as the nose of the plane swung downward. He caught on one side of the wire stays between the planes and grasped one of the wooden braces of the upper plane with both hands. Then working with hands and feet he fought by main strength to warp the planes so that their surfaces might catch the air and check his descent. For a second it seemed to the white faced spectators almost under him that he might succeed, for the football helmet he wore flew off and fell much more rapidly than the plane.
The hope was only momentary, however, for when only about 300 feet from the ground the machine turned completely over and the spectators fled wildly as the broken plane with the tense faced bey still fighting grimly in its mesh of wires and stays plunged among them with a thud and crash that could be heard over the big field.
Scarcely had he hit the ground when sensation-mad men and women swarmed over the wreckage, fighting with one another for souvenirs of the terrible accident.
One of the broken wooden stays had thrust its jagged ends almost through Johnstone's body. Before doctors or police could reach the scene one man had torn this splinter from the crushed and mangled body and ran gleefully away, carrying his horrid trophy with the Aviator’s blood still dripping from its end, Frantic, the crowd tore away the canvas from over his body and fought
(Continued on Page Three.)
