Marlborough Search For Hood’s Plane

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32216, 7 February 1970, Page 1

Marlborough Search For Hood’s Plane

A party of at least 16 men, including volunteers from the Royal New Zealand Air Force, is searching near Mount Stokes, in the Marlborough Sounds, for the metal monoplane Aotearoa. in which Captain G. Hood and Lieutenant J. R. Moncrieff set out to cross the Tasman from Sydney to Trentham on January 10, 1928.

The search is being headed by Mr K. B. Mabin, of Christchurch. Mr Mabin believes that the wreckage of the Aotearoa lies in bush near the summit of Mount Stokes. Nine of the Air Force men are from Wigram and six are from Woodbourne. It is understood that civilians have joined the search and that it will continue for two weeks.

Mr Mabin wants to prove that a plane crossed the Tasman from Australia before Kingsford-Smith’s Southern Cross.

The Easter after the Aotearoa flight Mr Mabin, his father and some friends saw what they believe was the

wreckage of a plane near the summit of Mount Stokes. Lately Mr Mabin has collected a mass of material from newspapers about the flight to aid him in his search.

According to “Windspread,” by Leo White, a book about pioneer aviation in New Zealand, the Aotearoa left Richmond aerodrome, near Sydney, but Morse contact with the machine was lost when it was half-way across the Tasman.

Mr Mabin believes that the flight was to have taken 15 hours and considers that the last message from the aircraft was sent when it was about 12J hours out from Sydney.