Finn
Trygve-Smith
Male
Norway
1912-09-18
Kristiania, Norway
1935-08-20
orgen, Ullensaker, Akershus, Norway
DeHavilland DH.82 Tiger Moth MSN 163: To Hærens Flyvevåpen (Norwegian Army) in 1993. Written off (destroyed) when flew into telephone line, crashed and caught fire while practicing blind flying. Pilot Serg Meinstad and Norwegian Davis-Cup player Fen Finn-Trygve Smith (aged 22) killed. According to a translation into English of a Norwegian website (see link #4 for the orginal Norwegian text, which is a biography of the passenger):
"20 Aug 1935
Borgen, Ullensaker, Akershus, Norway
Killed in a tragic plane crash that killed 2 of the army's pilots. The accident happened at Borgen Dairy in Ullensaker.
The plane had been circling the area for some time. It flew very low, just above the roof of the dairy. The plane, a Tiger-Moth (155), belonged to a department located at Gardermoen to participate in large maneuvers there. It turned out that the pilots were flying so-called blind flight when the accident happened, that is, they only flew for instruments.
The pilots had said they would only be gone for a quarter of an hour. The accident occurred about 10 minutes after the start.
An eyewitness told Sarpsborg Arbeiderblad that he saw the plane coming at low altitude and at high speed towards the thick telephone cable, which it ran into. For a brief moment, the plane was hanging on one wing, but crashed when the wing was torn loose. The wing hung on the telephone cable for a while. The plane immediately caught fire when it hit the ground, and the flames made it impossible to get to the pilots' rescue.
The eyewitness said that he clearly saw the pilots' faces, and firmly claimed that they must have been killed already in the collision with the telephone cable. The forest around the crash site also caught fire, but it manages to extinguish the heat after a short time.
When the fire had subsided and they got to the plane, they saw that the pilots were trapped in the machine, completely charred and unrecognizable. It was not possible to identify them, but the number of the plane and a subsequent telephone conversation with those who had the list of the planes, they stated that the people on board were Ensign Finn Trygve Smith and Sergeant Erling Meinstad.
As soon as the accident was reported to Kjeller Airport, an ambulance was sent to retrieve the charred bodies of the two pilots.
Tennis player and competitor of Finn, Dick Bjurstedt, says:
When the National Championships were to be played in August, Finn was not present. He was an ensign in the Air Force, and was going on a maneuver. On August 2, I met Magnus Stærnes in Akersgaten. He looked unusually serious. "I see you have not heard," he said with tears in his eyes. They said on the radio that Finn had fallen.
With Finn, we lost a brilliant friend.
From the obituary in Aftenposten 22 August 1935:
"Our dear son and my beloved brother Finn Tryggve Smith died suddenly taken from us on 20 August. Gudrun Smith (b. Zinow), Trygve Smith, Eldrid Bergliot (Kiddy) Darell-Smith. The funeral will take place in the new crematorium on Friday at 2pm".
A number of Tiger Moths (total uncertain, but around 56) were built under licence primarily for the Norwegian Army. MSN's 133 to 165 (thirty-two aircraft) were built in 1933; 171 to 190 (nineteen aircraft) in 1935 and a few more (possibly five) by 1937. Norwegian Army serials, for some reason, were odd numbers only between 127 and 201.
The reported crash location of Borgen is a village in the municipality of Ullensaker, Norway, at approximate cordinates 60.1702 N, 11.1891 E.
1931 - 1935
0
7
3
Round 1
Finn Trygve-Smith 1 *
George E. Lyttleton-Rogers
5-7
6-1
6-3
9-11
6-4
Round 2
John Van Ryn 1 *
Finn Trygve-Smith
6-3
6-1
6-2
Round 1
Finn Trygve-Smith 1 *
Ferdinand Uhl
6-1
6-2
Round 2
André Lacroix 1 *
Finn Trygve-Smith
6-4
6-4
Round 1
Paul Harold Partridge 1 *
Finn Trygve-Smith
6-8
3-5
ret.
Round 2
Finn Trygve-Smith 1 *
Hans van Swol
6-0
2-6
6-1
Round 1
Marcel Bernard 1 *
Finn Trygve-Smith
6-2
6-4
6-3