My Family Tree

According to the History of Margate, Herbert Mann was Prince Edward Island's first air fatality. He was 24 years of age in 1934, the son of William R. Mann Margate. He died when the wing section of his single seater Heath Parasol Model plane broke away. The accident occurred in the centre of Notre Dame Street, near the intersection of Northumberland Street in Summerside. Herbert held a private pilot's license and had done considerable flying previously.

July 1933: PEI's first air fatality occurred at Summerside's Exhibition Ground when Herbert J. Mann was killed instantly.

Reg Pope:
Reg had also a two seater de Havilland Moth which he recovered following a crash somewhere on the mainland in 1933. With the help of a neighbour, Harold Schurman, he recovered the wrecked plane by truck and repaired it for flying. Later that year, he was taking a neighbour, Mrs. Bowness, for a flight in this de Havilland Moth on Dominion Day when a friend was killed in another aircraft at the old airfield at Summerside. He had loaned this friend, Herbert Mann of Margate, the aircraft which, unfortunately, he used for stunt flying. On a third dive in front of the grandstand a wing broke off and the airplane crashed and burned. This was the first time someone was killed in an airplane accident on PEI. In 1936, he sold the de Havilland Moth to Carl Burke, his first airplane. Peter Pope recalled walking on the Duke street boardwalk with his father when Carl Burke passed the last payment for the airplane to his father.