MISSING PLANE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25638, 29 October 1948, Page 6

MISSING PLANE

20 Aircraft On Search Yesterday NEW AREA TO BE COVERED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct 28. The area to be searched for the missing Lockheed Electra. Kaka, will be extended to-morrow to include the Stratford district (at the foot of Mount Egmont), 90 miles to the south of Kawhia, where a search was made today on the report that an aircraft had been heard on Saturday afternoon. Other reports "that an Electra had been* seen near Rotorua were investigated to-day. Aircraft established that an object on Mount Pirongia, near Te Awamutu, was not the missing machine. q Twenty aeroplanes were engaged in the search to-day. Bad weather is predicted for to-mor-row. t Fourteen low-flying aircraft from Auckland searched 11,000 square tniles of the central North Island to-day. Tired crews who did more than 100 hours of intensive flying between dawn and dusk returned to their bases with nothing to report from a day’s operations that represented the greatest air search in tne history of New Zealand aviation. Speculation on Course Search Control, Wellington, said today that it was impossible to say what track the aircraft had followed and that to attempt *io plot the theoretical course would merely be confusing. The number of possible courses which the machine might have taken were almost unlimited, and no more precise speculation could be made than that. The postmaster at Kawhia (Mr C. Humphrey) said he heard an aircraft over Kawhia harbour between 2.30 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday. Mr Humphrey’s story has been confirmed by Mrs Brown, of -Owhfro, and Mr and. Mrs Vernsen, farmers, further up Kawhia harbour. However, Search Control ' said that aircraft similar to the Kaka could have been in the Kawhia area on Saturday. Mr Ralph J. Mitchell, aged 17, employed at the Reporoa Post Office (26 miles from Rotorua) said that between 2 and 3 p.m. on Saturday he saw a Lockheed Electra travelling as though heading for Rotorua. The engines were making an unusual noise. It is thought at Rotorua that the Electra may have come down in the Paeroa range (not to be confused with the town of Paeroa) just to the south.