Postcards (2) & news cutting of plane crash in Lydiard Tregoze, 1913

The two postcards show a plane crash on the Bolingbroke estate at Lydiard Tregoze on May 10th, 1913. The event was recorded on page 3 of The Cheltenham Chronicle & Gloucestershire Graphic the following week in a column entitled Army Aeroplane Wrecked - Cheltenham Officer's Escape.

The article describes the pilot and his mechanic losing their bearings over Swindon and landing in a waterlogged field in Lydiard Tregoze.

' It was when an attempt was made to rise that the accident occurred. The monoplane raced along the ground, but failed to leave the earth, and before the engine could be shut off, the machine rushed into a hedge, turned a complete somersault and landed with a crash on the other side'.

Fortunately both men got out alive. A letter home from the pilot stated that the people on the estate were very kind to him and his assistant, giving them food and afterwards taking the wrecked machine on a trolley to Upavon.