3-020-942 - British Pathe Ltd/Heritage Images

Plume of Flame Emitting from the ‘Bellanca’ Crash as People Attend to Wreckage, 1933. 'For the Marquis de Pinedo, leading aviator, a take-off with death at the far end of the runway. Progress demands its sacrifices'. When Pinedo attempted to take off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, on 2 September 1933 for his flight to Baghdad with his Bellanca overloaded with fuel, he lost control of the aircraft. Unable to detach from the airstrip, the plane veered off the runway, flipped onto its right side and crashed. Thrown from his seat, Pinedo quickly attempted to reach back to the controls in order to turn off the smouldering plane's engine, but at the same moment, fuel vapours ignited. He died in the resulting fire, which also destroyed the plane. From "Time To Remember - The Time Of The Monster", 1933 (Reel 2); documentary film about events of 1933, rise of Roosevelt and Hitler.