426169 LAC John Stanley Gordon, 1913-14/1/1943.

 

AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT

TWO MEN KILLED. 

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Jan.. 15. Two members of the R.N.Z.A.F. lost their lives in an aircraft accident near a South Island training station yesterday afternoon. The personnel concerned were:—

Flying-Officer Jack Alfred King (father, Mr George King, Auckland). 

L.A.C. John Stanley Gordon (mother, Mrs M. M. Gordon, Heriot). 

The cause of the accident is obscure.  -Manawatu Standard, 16/1/1943.

TAPANUI

Obituary — Leading Aircraftman John Stanley Gordon, who was killed in an aircraft accident while on a training flight, was the youngest son of Mr and Mrs John Gordon, of “Oakleigh,” Heriot. Leading Aircraftman Gordon who was 28 years of age, was educated at the Heriot School and Tapanui District High School. On leaving school he worked on his father’s farm until 1936, when he and his brother leased the property. He first became interested in flying at the time of the Southland flying scholarship contest in 1934, in which he reached the finals. Later he joined the Kelso Gliding Club. He was keenly interested in sport, and besides being a member of the Heriot Football, Golf, and Bowling Clubs, was in later years an enthusiastic skier, and one of the foundation members of the Blue Mountain Ski Club. He possessed a bright and cheery manner, and made many friends.   -Otago Daily Times, 22/1/1943.

RECENT MOMONA FATALITY

Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., sitting as coroner, yesterday concluded the inquest into the death of Leading Aircraftman John Stanley Gordon, aged 29, and Flying Officer Jack Alfred King, aged 24, who were killed when a Royal New Zealand Air Force plane crashed near Momona on January 14. Constable Harris represented the police. 

Constable Dark, of Outram, produced statements from two eye-witnesses of the crash, both of whom were agreed that the plane, which was flying at a low altitude, went into a slow spin before it fell. The machine caught fire almost immediately it hit the ground. One occupant was seen to jump from the plane, and his body was found about 30 yards from the scene of the crash. The other body was removed from the wreckage of the plane, the clothing being partly burned. 

The coroner said he was satisfied, from the finding of the Court of Inquiry and the. evidence produced by the police, that the plane was in good order, and that the accident occurred during training operations while it was being piloted by Gordon, with King as instructor. He could only find that King died from multiple injuries, received when he jumped from the plane while it was flying at a low altitude. Gordon’s death was due to injuries received when the plane he was piloting crashed and caught fire.  -Otago Daily Times, 11/3/1943.

Tapanui Cemetery.