SAVED BY A FLARE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 220, 16 September 1932, Page 7

SAVED BY A FLARE

LAST DROP OF PETROL. Flying Family's Escape from Fearful End. ICEBERG SHATTERS 'PLANE. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, September 15. Mr. G. Hutehinson, organiser of the flying family air trip from America to London, in a wireless message to the British United Press from Angmagsalik, Greenland, says they were endeavouring to pass under bad weather and flew at an altitude of 50 feet between icebergs. The windshield became covered in ice. The fivers found that the 'plane was unable to ride out the gale, therefore they descended in a rough sea between icebergs. The ice dented one of the pontoons and the crew was quickly drenched. The anchor would not grip so they taxied ashore on an island. The two children, Mr. Hutchinson's daughters, aged eight and six, were not afraid and showed no sign of tears throughout the hazardous moments. The party of eight huddled together in a cave, where they spent two uncomfortable and bitterly cold nights until the last of their fuel was used as a flare and attracted the Aberdeen trawler, Lord Talbot. The party earlier had the tantalising experience of hearing messages from the searching ships, to which they were unable to reply owing to the swamping of the machine damaging the wireless transmitter. "We boarded the lifeboat as a huge iceberg crashed on the fragments of our 'plane," said Mr. Hutehinson. An Angmagsalik message says that Mr. and Mrs. Hutehinson, their children and the four others accompanying them will depart for England to-day aboard the Lord Talbot.

The proprietors of the "Daily Herald," being anxious to save the Hutehinson family from the rigorous Arctic winter, have arranged for the trawler Lord Talbot to take them to Thurso. There they will entrain for London. Mr. George Hutehinson has wirelessed "fo the "Herald" expressing his gratitude.