FORCED LANDING

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 15

FORCED LANDING

ONTARIO PREMIER IN MISHAP FLIGHT IN FAR NORTH OF CANADA (Received July 29, 12.35 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 28. Fears of an aeroplane crash involving the Premier of Ontario (Mr M. F. Hepburn), Mr Bernard Smith, a noted New York stock market operator, Mr J. P. Bicknell, a Toronto mining magnate, and the pilot, James Towne, of Toronto, on a flight from White Horse, Yukon Territory, to Juneau, where they were hours overdue, were allayed when Mr Bicknell’s New York office announced that it had received word from Toronto that Mr Hepburn and party were safe, and had spent the night & Carcross.

The information reached Toronto by telephone from the Yukon, but no details were given. Meanwhile the United States Army Signal Corps at Washington reported that it had received a radio message from Skagway stating that the aeroplane had turned back from Skagway to Carcross on account of fog. Earlier messages stated .that the United States Weather Bureau had reported that flying conditions in the area were extremely poor, and that the air line bases at Skagway and Carcross, Alaska, had been ordered to begin an immediate search. Mr Hepburn and party left White Horse yesterday en route to Juneau, a distance of 135 miles, in Mr Bicknell’s amphibian, and they should have completed the trip in two hours, even against strong head winds.

The territory in which Mr Bicknell’s aeroplane was flying is rugged and mountainous. There are several emergency landing fields, but all lacking means of communication with the outside world. Mr Smith is known on Wall Street as “Sell ’em Ben.” He made 10,000,000 dollars in 30 days by short selling in the 1929 stock market crash. It was recently reported that he was attempting to negotiate for petroleum from the wells which Mexico expropriated.