July 12, 1928
Front Page
ARMY FLYER KILLED HERE LAST EVENING
Keith Roscoe Was Instantly Killed When
Thrown from Plane Two Miles South of Town.
Keith Roscoe, 2nd lieutenant in the U. S. Army
Flying Corps, was instantly killed yesterday about 6 p.m. when he
was flying with two other army men near the Earl Lockwood farm-house
two miles south of Fayette. The men in the other planes state that
they saw him pitch forward in the plane as if he sneezed, and it is
their theory that he lost control of his plane, a Curtiss machine,
and as he was not strapped in he fell from a height of about 300
feet. His body struck in a corn field not far from the Lockwood
house, and the plane fell several hundred feet further east in a
field of oats. The plane was smashed and half buried in the ground,
and the flyer's body was crushed and broken. the impact of his body
made a large hole in the ground, and after he struck the rebound
carried him over ten rows of corn. His parachute was tangled about
him. Death was no doubt instantaneous.
Dr. J. D. Parker was at once summoned to the
place, but there was nothing to be done as the man was dead. A. J.
Fox and J. W. Burget went out to the scene and brought the body to
the Fox undertaking rooms.
The three army men in three planes were
traveling toward Aberdeen, S.D., where it is stated an airport is to
be opened today. They left Michigan yesterday about 1:30 p.m.,
Chicago at 3 and had reached this place about three hours later.
Papers on Roscoe's body indicated that
Selfridge Field, Mt. Clemens, Mich., was his headquarters. He was
about twenty-five years old, apparently.
His two companions were taken by automobile
soon after the accident to the camp of the Johnson Construction co.,
at Maynard, and from there intended to go to Oelwein to spend the
night.
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