FORCED LANDING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 206, 31 August 1936, Page 7

FORCED LANDING.

IMPERIAL AIR LINER. Machine Undamaged and Twelve Occupants Safe. TROUBLE NOT ASCERTAINED. United Press Association. —Copyright. (Received 10 a.m.) LOXDOX, August 30. Anxiety was caused yesterday by dispatches from Basra, Iraq, reporting that an Imperial Airways liner, the Horsa, was believed to have been forced down between there and Bahrein, island in the Persian Gulf, with eight passengers and a crew of four on board. An all day search from the air and at sea had proved fruitless but this morning news was received that the air liner had been found. The crew of another of the company's machines located the Horsa on the ground near the desert 50 miles south of Bahrein. Apparently she was not damaged and all the occupants were safe.

It is believed the Horsa overshot the landing place at Bahrein and made a forced landing 40 miles south at Dohak. Probably the fuel was exhausted. The &ir. liner Aurora and a R.A.F. aeroplane "bave left to ascertain whether the Horsa is able to proceed. If unable they will take the passengers to Basra, whence they will continue the journey. The air liner left Basra eastward bound at II p.m. on Friday, local time. A Royal Air Force flying boat was sent out to search for her but attempts to communicate with her by wireless faild. Between Basra and Bahrein the land is desert, inhabited only by Arab nomads who fire prone to raiding and fighting. Search Plan Organised. Imperial Airways ordered the Atalanta to Basra from Karachi to carry out a search in which the British sloops Bideford and Fowey joined. Six of the Horsa's passengers are travelling to India. One of the others is not known, but the eighth is Mrs. Jane Wallace-Smith, who is travelling from London to Brisbane. She Ms the wife of a Melbourne stockbroker, Mr. Hugh Wallace-Smith. The air liner is carrying Australian mail dispatched from London on August 20. Apparently she was forced down about 2 a.m. Greenwich time, as the last radio message received from her a little while before did not mention trouble.

Imperial Airways liners usually skirt this wild and inaccessible region. The passengers and mail had been already involved in one delay at Brindisi owing to the mishap to the Scipio. Aeroplanes from Shaibali, Iraq, and the machine from Karachi, participated in the search. An official of Imperial Airways in London stated yesterday that in view of the lack of local communications the absence of news must not be allowed to create undue anxiety. The Horsa had wirelessed at 5.20 a.m., Persian Gulf time —namely, about sunrise—that she was about to land and could not communicate further. The official deduced from that message that she had safely landed, but the emergency ground wireless was not able to function further because the transmitter generates from the aero engine and therefore could not work if, as was probable, the petrol was exhausted. The Horsa only carried petroi Tor a r,J hours' flight and had been that time in the air. MISSED IN DARKNESS. AERODROME OVERFLOWN. (Received 1 p.m.) LOXDOX, August 30. The "Daily Telegraph" Basra correspondent says the Horsa's passengers and crew were not hurt and spent one day and part of two nights in the desert far from civilisation. The pilot missed Bahrein aerodrome in the darkness and landed on the mainland owing to shortage of petrol. The undercarriage was damaged and will be thoroughly overhauled. The "Daily Mail" Bagdad representative says the passengers and crew of the Horsa are being flown to Basra in the Imperial Airways 'plane Atalanta.