| Date: July 14, 1927 |
Survivors: none |
Fatalities: serz. Jekabs Kaire |
Aircraft Involved: Sopwith Camel # 17 |
Location: Daugavpils |
Details:
- At four in the morning Sgt.Kaire took off from the Daugavpils military airfield in Sopwith Camel #17.
It is believed that the engine was not running well on takeoff and, as he tried to adjust the mixture, it
stopped entirely. Rather than continuing to glide in a forward direction and selecting a landing spot
outside of the airfield, Kaire tried to turn the airplane back towards the airfield and glide back to his
starting point. This all too common mistake proved fatal, as he had insufficient airspeed to sustain
flight during a turn and he fell into an irrecoverable spiral.
|
