The daily banner., 1919-05-26
KILLED IN
AIRPLANE CRASH
Too Daring Aviator Cashes
Down to Death.
HAD EEEH Warned OF PERIL
BeryI kendrick, With Young Realty
Man as Passenger, Killed at the
Shore.


Atlantic City, May 2G.-Aviator
Beryl Kendrick, pioneer in passenger
carrying along the beach, and James
Bew, wealthy young realt"r were in
stantly killed when Il seap!ane in
which Kendrick had been doing stunts
over the crowds at the air port col
lapsed while going into n bank 800
feet over Absecon Inlet and crashed
upon sandbar 500 yards across the
inlet channel.
When Orton Hoover, a Curtiss pilot,
who witnessed the tragedy from the
Curtiss flying station, pushed across
the channel in seaplane to their as
sstance he found them both dead in
the wreckage They were crushed al
most beyond recognition by the weight
of the 90-hOrsepOwer motor above
their heads and the weight of the
fuselage when the machine struck bot
tom side up on the bar. 1t was half
an hour later before the mangled bod
les could be eXtricated.
The accident came as the climax to
a day Of daring flying by kendrlck,
who did stunts in seaplane painted
in black and white checkers, in which
he, who was twenty-eight years old
and had been flying for six years, took
chances that caused officials Of the
Aero Club Of America to criticise his
actions. He flew down the beach in
front of the Traymore hotel and land
ed on the sand, something unheard OF
in aviation, with Seaplane.
The aviator, accompanied by George
Badger, a Canadian mechinician, made
the landing perfectly, however, the
machine failing down and then flat
tening out on glide that brought it
up in its own length, apparently with
out injury The landing was the sec
Ond Of the kind Kendrick had made
on a bet that it could be done, the
other taking place on the very bar
where he was killed. Lawrence Sper-
ry, of the Sperry Gyroscope company,
New York, was his passenger when
this first landing was made last We'd
nesday.
Kendrick, after the beach stunt,
waited for the tide to come in and
float his machine. Then, with Badger,
he coursed out over the city to the
Air Port, where. Lieutenant Ormer
Locklear, an aerial acrobat, was doing
circus stunts with a land plane. The
seaplane startled the big crowds there
by starting to initiate Locklear, who
was finished acrobat, trained at Bar
ron Field, Texas. Kendrick first put
the checkered plane through swOOpS
and glides at attitudes that ranged
from 300 feet down to within ten feet
Of the ground. He stalled his motor
once while 100 feet above the grand
stand, but laughed as he waved his
hands to the gasping crowd below.
Mr.. Bew, who had a financial inter-
est in the Kendrick-Jaquith corpora
tiOn, had driven to the field in his au-
tOmObile to watch the air events.
When Kendrick settled in the water.
Bew went over to him and got aboard,
sending Badger back to the inlet fly
ing station with his motorcar.
Kendrick, with Bew as his passen-
ger, started on the trip back to the
inlet, skirting over the meadows at
the western flank of the resort. He
circled over the inlet, coming down
from 1000 feet and then went into a
bank.
According to Harold Willetts, one
of the fiers Of the corporation, who
was standing near Jaquith on their
runway, -Kendrick put the machine
into a sharp bank. She seemed to
twist suddenly as if something parted
and took sharp nose dive, straight
down. A strong wind caught under
on its back, crushing the occupants as
it landed. There was rush of people
from their dinners at the hotels TO
the scene of the tragedy where they
watched the clearing away of the
wreckage.
The spot where the machine crash
ed is within 300 yards of where the
wreckage Of Melvin Vanniman's diri-
gible dropped when it exploded on
July 1, 1912, during trial fight pre-
paratOry to an attempt to cross the
Atlantic ocean, killing Vanniman and
his crew of three.
Kendrlck married a wealthy widow
here about seven years ago. They
have no children. Bew was married
and had two children, David, four,
and William, one year old. He was
the son of James Bew, one of the re-
sorts leading bankers