On 2nd December 1911 this aircraft had been flown on / over Windermere and landed on the water near Cockshott Point, where the aircraft was housed,
when it was caught by gust of wind and the wind caused the aircraft to capsize. The pilot was thrown out and the aircraft sustained damage to a wing
and the propeller was broken. In 1912 the hanger in which this and other aircraft were housed was destroyed in a gale and this aircraft sustained severe damage.
Pilot - Mr Oscar Theodor Gnosspelius.
Oscar Gnosspelius was born in March 1878 in Maghull, Liverpool. He had built his first float-plane built by Borwick and Sons, of Bowness, in 1910 similar to the design
of a Bleriot XI but with floats. The first failed to fly and may have crashed but no details of this incident have yet been found. Had it flown it would have been the first successful
flight from water in the UK but this was claimed by another constructor on Windermere on 25th November 1911. The mishap sustained in December 1912 was to Gnosspelius'
second aircraft which was a modifed version of the first. During the First World War he served in the RNAS and later the RAF rising to the rank of Major. He later
worked for Short Brothers and designed his Gnosspelius Gull aeroplane. He died in February 1953 and is buried in Coniston Cemetery.