U.S. JET SHOT DOWN

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28529, 7 March 1958, Page 7

U.S. JET SHOT DOWN

’“Ground Fire By i Communists” (Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, Mar. 6. 3 A United States Air Force FB6 Sabre jet was shot down “by Communist ground fire” near the Korean demilitarised zone this morning, the United States Air Force announced, according to the American Associated Press. A second FB6 accompanying the downed Sabre on a training mission returned to its base. Its pilot said he “saw the lead aircraft hit and crash and then momentarily saw a parachute with the pilot floating toward the ground just over the Communist side of the line.” The two Sabres were on a lowJevel simulated ground support training mission about 65 miles north-east of Seoul, the dispatch said. The Air Force and United Rations Command immediately began investigating. OIL PLANTS IN j INDONESIA Firms Warned Of Bombing Plants (Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 5. The Indonesian Air Force was reported tonight to have warned the American-owned Caltex and the Dutch B.P.M. oil companies that it intended to carry out bombardment of their installations at Menado in the North Celebes and Padang, Central Sumatra, the American Associated Press said in a dispatch from Singapore. • In New York, a spokesman for Caltex (the California-Texas Oil Company, Ltd.) said the company had no installations at either Menado or Padang. *7 In Washington, the State Department spokesman said today that the department had received reports that the Indonesian Air Force might launch air attacks against Standard-Vacuum Oil Company storage tanks at Padang. The spokesman, Mr Lincoln White, said the United States Embassy at Jakarta had been instructed to take up the matter : with the Indonesian Government to find out if the reports were ; accurate, and to caution the In- ; Jonesian leaders if the reports < were true. Mr White added that the re- ' ports said that the Indonesian Government would launch the air Pttacks if military action against the rebels made it necessary. A hand grenade exploded, killing three persons and injuring 14 ■in Macassar, the capital of the .South Celebes, it wa r reported ( here tonight The Pia news agency said Macassar police and soldiers were ’searching for the attackers who threw the grenade at a crowd J Watching a festive Chinese New s Year procession in a street near 1 a mosque. , The three killed were all children and the injured were mostly children and adolescents.

• When the Army placed the United States’ first satellite into orbit on January 31, using the same rocket, President Eisenhower announced the successful orbiting about two hours later. But the hours rolled by yesterday, and late last night and early this morning there was still no word of the second satellite, named “Explorer II.” Scientists offered two theories: The satellite was in orbit, but for some reason both radio transmitters aboard were not functioning. The rocket failed to reach the ; velocity of 25,000 miles-an- ' hour needed to take the satellite beyond the pull of earth’s gravity, and Explorer II was in the ocean. The theory that the satellite and the last-stage rocket went into an unplanned orbit and another hypothesis that the two were now inert bodies in space because of the failure of the rocket to achieve the escape velocity were ; discarded by most of the Army scientists and by International Geophysical Year spokesmen. The second United States satellite was almost identical with the first launched earlier this year, but it had one special instrument —a 7-ounce tape recorder, only inches in diameter. This tape recorder is capable of storing up to two hours of cosmic ray data for more than 30,000 miles of cosmic ray counts. This data could, under normal conditions, be “played back” to earth within five seconds whenever “triggered” by a radio-frequency burst from one of the minitrack stations used in tracking the satellite. Dr. Richaru Porter, of the National Academy of Sciences, said in Washington last night that he believed an effort would be made to “trigger” the equipment aboard the satellite by aiming radio beams at the approximate orbit planned for it. If the satellite was up, and the equipment aboard was undamaged, it should be possible to start transmissions from it. But Dr. William Pickering, head of the California Institute of Technology’s jet propulsion laboratory, when asked what could have happened said: “Maybe it’s in the ocean. . . If it isn’t up, what could it be but down?” The laboratory is responsible for determining the satellite’s orbit. Meanwhile the Army announced that all four stages of its Jupiter C rocket had functioned “as they were supposed to.” Sources at the missile range said it would be at least two days before data could be reduced to give an indication of what had happened. All major rockets are equipped with a maze of instruments which record every second of flight by radio impulse to magnetic tape on the ground. It takes hours of poring over the tape to pinpoint a flaw in performance. Some observers said they nad sighted a clue in a brief “hold” in the countdown only five minutes before the rocket left the ground. They said the tiny tape recorder in the satellite did not. “answer” when “interrogated” in a final test, which might indicated a failure in the transmitting equipment rather than a complete 1 failure to get the satellite into orbit. Science Resorts To Verse (Rec. 11 p.m.) SAN DIEGO (California), March 6. « The following verse was put on I the bulletin board at the. Naval ; Electronics’ laboratory minnitrack station several hours after Explorer II was launched today.: We shot a satellite into the air. : It circles the earth we know not whe'e. ( Its radio signal, so loud and clear, . Got lost someplace in the atmosphere.