Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Stunt aviator De Lloyd Thompson survived what he called “the worst accident I ever had,” while a crowd of thousands watched at Spokane’s Interstate Fairgrounds.

Thompson was performing a series of loops and rolls when his “aero rod” broke, making it difficult for him to control the biplane. He “strained at the levers,” righted the machine and put it on a “fairly even keel, landing at a point about a mile and half east of the fairgrounds.” 

He landed in a rocky field near the railroad tracks and it was “sheer luck that kept it from hitting boulders which would have smashed it to pieces.” People at the fairgrounds jumped in their autos and raced to the scene, and before long a crowd estimated at 2,000 gathered around the broken airplane.

“Thompson was standing in front of his machine,” the paper said. “He was cool, and the only thing that seemed to bother him was that the machine was broken and that the show would have to be postponed a day. The only evidence of nerves was the snappy way in which he asked people to keep back from the machine.”

When someone said, “Pretty lucky, boy,” Thompson replied, “Of course I’m lucky or I wouldn’t be here today.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1958: The army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy.