AVIATOR KILLED UNDER PLANE IN RIVER
Crushed between the airplane he was driving and a large rock in the Susquehanna River, about a mile below Millersburg, yesterday afternoon, F. W. Robinson, a United States mail aviator, was instantly killed.
The machine, traveling north, had struck the telephone cable stretched across the river about 200 feet in the air at that point, and had failed, turning turtle and pinning the driver underneath. The plane was wrecked. It is believed that the fog had made it necessary for the aviator to fly low.
Robinson, whose depot is Hazelhurst Field, Long Island, and whose home is in California, was by himself. He was about 30 years old.
Fourteen bags of mail, addressed to western points, were found in the plane, and taken in charge by Postmaster C. W. Rubendall, at Millersburg, who later sent it to the Pennsylvania Terminal here.
The machine was carrying mail from New York to Chicago, and was about twenty-five miles off the regular route, which passes near Sunbury and Milton. It is apparent that Robinson had lost his course, and was following the river northward.
Coroner Jacob Eckinger, who was called to the scene, gave a verdict of accidental death. The body was taken in charge by a Millersburg undertaker. The wrecked plane is still on the rock in the river where it fell.
Several person saw the plane fall and two these, J. Howard Kahler and Earl Barnhart, of Millersburg, had been fishing nearby, ruched to the aid of the aviator. The later was dead when they found him, however.
The breaking of the toll cable caused service of the Cumberland Valley Telephone Company to be cut off in parts of Perry County. The wires extend from Berry’s Mountain to Mount Patrick, about a mile and a quartet apart. The ends of the wire are anchored in solid rocks, 700 feet high, on the Perry County side, and 500 feet high on the Dauphin County side, and dropping to about 100 feet above the surface of the Susquehanna in the center. Officials of the company are examining the the break today.
Relatives from Reading are on their way to Millersburg to view the body. Robinson boarded in Orange, New Jersey, and the boarding mistress was reached by telephone today. A lane from the Hempstead Field is said to have started for Millersburg as well as officers from the Bellefonte field by automobile.
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From the Harrisburg Evening News, 29 September 1920, via Newspapers.com.
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