REPORTED SAFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 177, 29 July 1938, Page 7

REPORTED SAFE.

ONTARIO PREMIER.

Party in 'Plane Overdue at Alaska Airport. NO DETAILS GIVEN. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 11 a.m.) XEW YORK, July 28. The New York office or Mr. J. P. Bieknell, a Toronto raining magnate, announced that it has received word that the party in Mr. Bicknell's 'plane, which included the Premier of Ontario, Mr. M. F. Hepburn, Mr. Bernard E. Smith, a noted Xew York stock market operator, as well as himself and the pilot, James F. Towne, of Toronto, and which was long overdue at Juneau, Alaska, is safe. The men spent the night at Carcross. • Information reached Toronto by telephone from the Yukon, but no "details have been given so far.

The United States Army Signal Corps report that they have received a radio message from Skagway stating that the plane turned back from Skagway to Carcross on account of fog.

Earlier cables stated that the United States Weather Bureau reported that flying conditions in the area are extremely poor. Heavy rains had fallen in the vicinity of Skagway, Juneau and White Horse, and the ceiling was low. Trans-Canada Airlines officials at Montreal reported that the airline bases at Skagway and Carcross, in Alaska, had been ordered to begin an immediate search, authorisation for which was received from Mr. Bicknell's Toronto office. Crave fears were held earlier that the machine had crashed. The party left White Horse, in the Yukon Territory, at 10.15 p.m. Eastern summer time yesterday en route for Juneau, a distance of 13.1 miles, in Mr. Bicknell's amphibian aeroplane.

Aviators thought the 'plane might have been forced down at Skagway.

Mr. Smith, who is known in Wall Street as '"Sell 'em Ben," and made £2,r,00,000 during the 1929 stock market crash, was recently reported to be attempting to negotiate for petroleum from the wells which Mexico has expropriated.

The territory in which the 'plane is missing is rugged and mountainous. There are several emergency landing fields, but all are lacking in means of communication with the outside world.