M.P. asks for air search

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33532, 13 May 1974, Page 14

M.P. asks for air search

(New Zealand Press Association)

TAURANGA, May 12.

The M.P. for Tauranga (Mr K. A. Allen) will ask search and rescue authorities in Auckland again tomorrow to organise a long-range search, using an R.N.Z.A.F. Orion, for the missing couple from Mount Maunganui.

Mr Allen said tonight that his views had not changed since he made two requests to the Minister of Defence (Mr Connelly) for an Orion search on Friday and Saturday.

“No wreckage from their boat has been found, and until it is found there is a chance that they are still afloat and alive,” he said.

! A light aircraft search over the Bay of Plenty yesi terday, shore surveillance by the police during the weekend, and vigilance maintained by hundreds of people in pleasure craft, failed to reveal a trace of Rex and Juanita Knights and their 16ft fibreglass boat. They have been missing since April 26. The view is held in official circles that the Knights may have been the victims of a disaster on the day that they went out for a few hours jf fishing.

The official view is that there could have been an explosion in their craft (they were known to have carried a spare five-gallon can of petrol and to have had a

pressure stove on board), or that they could have struck a log. The authorities are reported to be unable to understand why a couple reported to be so resourceful, and to have had at least one Army ration pack, plus a spare outboard motor, could not have otherwise done something to help themselves,-or to a draw attention to their plight.