Search For Bomber Crew Held Up By Bad Weather

Press, Volume C, Issue 29657, 30 October 1961, Page 14

Search For Bomber Crew Held Up By Bad Weather

(JTJtJ’A.-Reitsr— Copyright) SINGAPORE, October 29. Bad weather held up the search this morning for the crew of a missing Royal New Zealand Air Force Canberra bomber, a Royal Air Force spokesman said. A parachute has been sighted in the jungle about 100 miles north-west of Singapore and a seven-man jungle rescue team left by car from Singapore last night for an airfield not far away. They were to have been lowered by a winch into the jungle at first light today, but the spokesman said heavy rain and very bad visibility was holding up the operation. Two men, the navigator and pilot, were on board the Canberra which was posted missing on Thursday night while on an exercise flight from Singapore to the Royal Australian Air Force base at Butterworth, northern Malaya.

Three of the 27 aircraft which have been quartering almost the whole erf Malaya saw the parachute yesterday and a helicopter from the Royal Australian Air Force base at Butterworth, north Malaya, went in and confirmed the sighting. The British spokesman said the helicopter pilot established that the harness of the parachute hanging in a tree had been naturally undone —a man had undone it and apparently climbed to earth. Ghurkas Alerted The 63rd Ghurka Brigade, stationed at Segamat, about 15 miles from the sighting, has been alerted and the jungle rescue team stood by its aircraft with parachutes in Singapore as soon as the report came through. But visibility was reported very bad over the site, the spokesman said, and seven of the normal 20 of the jungle

rescue team left at full speed by road for Segamat last night They included Squadron Leader H. Harrison, commanding officer of the jungle rescue section, and carry three days’ rations. A helicopter is waiting for them and as soon as possible they will be taken into the jungle and lowered one by one about 200 feet down on a steel hawser to earth. There they will assemble and search for tracks. The R AT. spokesman said there had been no sign of another parachute. The search was called off at night—except for one longrange Shackleton bomber from Singapore which will keep the night vigil. When the Canberra was announced missing, what the Air Force described as one of the biggest air searches in the South-east Asian region was instituted. Yesterday 27 aircraft from

the British, New Zealand, Australian and Malayan Air Force* quartered almost the whole erf Malaya.

Unidentified radio signals which might have come from a crashed crew member’s emergency radio have been picked up and two fires sighted at night, but last night's report was the first giving any definite location to the possible scene of the crash.

The spokesman for the RA.F. said that if both members of the Canberra’s crew had managed to eject themselves from the aircraft and parachute to the ground they might be expected to have landed within about five miles of each other. The jungle rescue team that will go in will be carrying radio and include a doctor with medical supplies in their number. If the seven are unable to cut their way out of the tangled jungle then the Ghurkas, tough little men from the Himalayas, are ready to begin cutting their way in to their assistance.