Clipping: Craft Falls Into Wires at Ruthven

WILSON, SOUTHWORTH, HUGHES

Posted By: Linda Hughes Meyers (email)
Date: 11/12/2008 at 17:18:26

CRAFT FALLS INTO WIRES AT RUTHVEN
Sioux City Flyers Die; Vera Hughes, Ruthven, Near Death.

(The Tribune's Iowa News Service.)
Ruthven - Two youths were killed and a girl probably fatally injured in an airplane crash Sunday morning, one and one-half miles north of Ruthven.

The dead are:
C. Kenneth Wilson, 20, of Sioux City, pilot
Ernest Southworth, also of Sioux City, mechanic.
The injured:
Vera Hughes, 15, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Hughes of Ruthven.

The plane fell from an altitude of 100 feet while "banking" too short preparatory in landing. The machine caught in some telephone wires and crashed by the side of the road to the ditch.
The plane, a Curtiss Robin cabin job was wrecked. It bore the number NC994. Wilson and Southworth had been doing passenger business in a field near here since Wednesday.

Girl Accepts Ride.
Miss Hughes had accepted an invitation to take a ride Sunday morning without her parents' consent. She was critically injured and taken to a Spencer hospital, where doctors held little hope for her recoveery. She suffered a fracture at the base of her skull and was still unconscious Sunday night.
Dr. H. M. Houston and Dr. J. Malmsberry, both of Ruthven, were called to the scene of the accident and rushed the girl to the hospital. Both men were dead when taken from the wreckage of the plane.

Fell Into Wires.
Earl McNutt, farmer, who witnessed the crash, said the plane fell nearly in front of his home. He said the ship banked too far while taking a corner and fell into the wires. He said the plane was not more than 100 feet high when it fell.
M. E. De Wolf of Spencer, census enumerator for the eleventh district, and Fred Tilden, also of Spencer, were driving along the road and watching the plane when it fell. They saw the plane take off and said they thought it lacked pep.

Crashed Near Auto.
The ship crashed fifty feet in front of their car. The accident occurred between Ruthven and Lost Island lake.
Robert and George Hughes, brothers of the injured girl, rode in the plane Saturday and were at the field Sunday when their sister went up with the flyers.

--from unknown newspaper. Crash happened in summer of 1930. Another clipping probably from the next day has a photo with crashed plane and says "Death Ends Flight of Three Iowans" and caption is "Smashed engine and crushed wings show the wreckage of this new Curtiss-Robin cabin model plane in which three person, Kenneth Wilson and Ernest Southworth of Sioux City and Vera Hughes of Ruthven were killed Sunday near Ruthven."