ANTARCTIC 'PLANE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 216, 12 September 1935, Page 7

ANTARCTIC 'PLANE.

Lincoln Ellsworth's Machine

Again Smashed.

NO DELAY IN NEW START

(Received 1 p.m.)

MONTEVIDEO, September 11

Mr. Lincoln Ellsworth's aeroplane Polar Star was "cracked up" yesterday when descending at an airport here alter engine trouble had developed during a test flight. The machine crashed into a wire fence. The explorer escaped injury. One wing oi' the 'plane was broken.

Mr. Ellsworth, who does not believe tho accident will delay departure of the expedition for the Antarctic, indicated that tho supply ship Wyatt Earp would, with her complete personnel aboard, leave on October 15 for the Weddell Sea, where, either from Dundee or Snowhill Island, he and his Canadian pilot, Kcnyon, will attempt for the sixth time the dangerous 2800-mile hop across the snow continent to the Ross Sea.

"It is a true pioneer flight," he says. "I am not interested in the resources of the continent, even if it is full of gold, but with the material from this flight I hope to be able to build fhe framework of knowledge which later expeditions can enlarge upon."

Mr. Ellsworth was inclined to disagree with Rear-Admiral Byrd's statement that Antarctica was deiinitely one laud mass. "Without trying to detract from his work, I believe his announcement was premature'when one consider how little is known of this great continent. It may many expeditions many years to decide the matter definitely."

DEATH OF CHILDREN.

SOVIET PARACHUTE TRAGEDY.

MOSCOW, September 11

Four children who had been declared to bo the best pupils aged nine years in Charkoff were rewarded with a flight in an aeroplane. The machine was circling over the town at a height of 7000 ft when the engine stopped. The two airmen on board jumped out with parachutes, each with two children in his arms.

One parachute failed to open and the three who were descending with it were killed. The others landed safely.