Woonsocket, Rhode Island
March 22, 1950
26-year old Charles B——–, of New Haven, Connecticut, was a new pilot, having only obtained his license six months earlier, so it was with trepidation that he looked over the field at Berkeley Airport in Cumberland and decided that he didn’t like what he saw. In his opinion, the field was too muddy, and he feared the Cessna 140 airplane that he planned to rent would either nose over or fail to gain sufficient speed to achieve altitude. Besides his own safety, there was his wife to consider, who planned on taking the flight with him.
He expressed his concerns to the airport manager, who didn’t share the young man’s concerns. To prove it, the manager offered to fly the Cessna to Woonsocket Airport a few miles away and meet the couple there. Then, if they liked conditions there, they could take-off and return the plane to Berkeley. The couple agreed, and got a ride to Woonsocket airport from Officer John M. Roberts of the Woonsocket police who had been at Berkeley taking a pilot’s instructors course.
A short time later the couple stood at Woonsocket Airport and Mr. B——- decided it was safe to fly from there. The couple climbed into the airplane with the husband at the controls. All seemed well as the plane headed down the runway and into the sky, but then the plane went into a stall and nosed to the ground. The fall was broken in part when a wing struck some power lines before it crashed at the intersection of Diamond Hill Road and Bound Road.
The severed power lines caused a delay in calling for help, so a bystander took the injured couple to Woonsocket Hospital in his private car. Fortunately their injuries weren’t serious. The airplane however, was a total loss.
Ironically, it was the just this type of accident the husband was trying to avoid in Berkeley that happened in Woonsocket.
Source:
Woonsocket Call, “Conn. Couple Misses Death In Crash At City Airport”, March 23, 1950