On this day in 1918 Arthur Brace Spooner was killed in a flying accident while in training as a cadet at the Royal Air Force’s 42nd Wing at Deseronto. He had joined the Royal Flying Corps on January 10th, 1918 in Winnipeg and was appointed to the Corps in Toronto on January 14th with the regimental number 154175. He was five feet six inches tall and had previously been working as a telegrapher.His accident happened on the morning of August 28th. Spooner had been sent up to practise spinning in aircraft C-1044. He tried to come out of a nose dive over a farm belonging to the McAlpine family of Tyendinaga (they owned property on Lot 28, Concession 1 in 1911). Mr Michael McAlpine described the accident at a Court of Inquiry held the same day:
Detail from Attorney General’s 1918 file RG4-32/2062 at the Archives of Ontario
2nd Witness Mr. M. McAlpin, Civilian, states:-
I saw the machine coming down in a nose dive. It then flattened out and the pilot put on his engine and flew over the barns at about 100 feet, his right wing struck an apple tree, the fuselage going on. I rushed over to the accident and had to undo the pilots belt in order to extricate him. He was already dead.
Spooner was born on May 28th, 1892, the son of William and Mary Spooner of Moosomin, Saskatchewan. He was buried in Moosomin’s South Side Cemetery.
From Find a Grave, courtesy of Dean Weckman