SALVAGE ATTEMPTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 139, 15 June 1939, Page 11

SALVAGE ATTEMPTS.

Part Of Centurion May Have To Be Abandoned.

FATE OF NEW ZEALAND MAILS

(Received 1 p.m.) LOXDOX, June 14. A message from Calcutta states that the Imperial Airways flying boat Centurion, which sank in the Hooghlv River on June 12. broke away during an attempt to raise her with chains. The tail end and two engines have been salvaged and the forepart may be abandoned. The Australian, Captain Kinloch, and the pilot, Mr. Evan Murray, who were injured, are progressing favourably. The Chief Postmaster at Auckland, Mr. R. G. May, states that advice from Australia indicates that only 831b of Xew Zealand mail dispatched by tiic Kaiianga from* Auckland on June 1 was on board the flying boat Centurion. This mail would include postings made after tiie dispatch in the Aorangi from Auckland on May 31.

It was reported yesterday that mails on the Centurion probably comprised dispatches by the Anglo-Canadian from Auckland on May 29, the Citv of Kimberley from Dunedin on May 30, the Waipawa from Wellington and the Aorangi from Auckland on May 31. but advice has now been received that these mails connected with the earlier flying boat.

AVIATION EXCHANGE. Bristol Experts, Australian Technicians. EMPIRE AIR MAIL EXPRESS. (Received 10 a.m.) LOXDOX, June 14. Bristol aero engines, numbering 250, will shortly be shipped to Australia to equip bombers to be locally built. Eighty Australian technicians are coming to the Bristol factory, and in exchange 20 Bristol experts will go to Australia. It is understood that the intention is to experiment with a short 32-ton land plane as a long-stage express for air mails on Empire routes. Survevs will be possible in 1040 to link Canada, Australia and Xew Zealand. ANOTHER STAGE. INDIAN OCEAN SURVEY. (Received 10.30 a.m.) SYDXEY, this day. A ladio message from Aden received by the Commonwealth Government states that the Guba. the Indian Ocean survey flying boat, has arrived at Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Archipelago. She alighted alongside the British cruiser Manchester at 12.42 a.m. (Greenwich mean time). The 'plane will stay at Diego Garcia for two days, during which it will make flights surveying the lagoon and will then take off for Mahe, in the Seychelles Group, where H.M.S. Liverpool is due on Saturday morning.