Biplane Pilots Lose Lives at San Diego

San Diego, 1913

FLYERS MEET DEATH LIEUTS. KELLY AND ELLINGTON LOSE THEIR LIVES AT SAN DIEGO, CAL.

FALL 80 FEET TO GROUND

Both Men Are Instantly Killed, the Motor Crushing Their Chests— Total Fatalities in Navy and Army Service Numbers Fifteen.

San Diego, Cal.—Two intrepid navigators of the air, Lieuts. Hugh M. Kelly and Eric L. Ellington, U. S. A., attached to the camp of the first aero corps, were instantly killed at North island, when they fell from an altitude of eighty or more feet in a dual controlled biplane.

Within eight minutes after Lieut. Ellington had waved his hand as a signal to the mechanicians to let go the biplane the army aviator and his brother officer were lying crushed and mangled corpses, a mile away from the hangars whence the two had ascended.

Lieut. Ellington, a skillful pilot, occupied the instructor's seat in the biplane, with Lieut. Kelly at his side. The latter, a comparative novice at the flying game, was receiving instructions in the handling of the control levers. Owing to the general arrangements of the controlling wires, Lieut. Ellington could be at all times absolute master of the machine.

The engine, one of six cylinders and sixty horsepower, was working perfectly, and the two officers ascended to a height of 300 feet, circled and then began a volplane which was to have brought them back to the hangars. According to Capt. Cowan, in command of the aviation post, the biplane glided at a normal angle for a distance of about 220 feet. Then the engine, which was throttled at the beginning of the volplane, was thrown open.

Whether at this instant the unfortunate aeronauts temporarily lost control of the machine or the initial impetus of the revolving propeller, when the biplane was at so low an altitude, caused the machine to tip forward, can only be conjectured. But the spectators of the flight say the biplane suddenly pitched forward, nose downward, and shot to the earth. The impact probably killed both men, but the motor made death doubly sure by crushing their chests.

—The Correctionville Argus, Correctionville, Iowa, November 28, 1913, page 6.