SEARCH HELD UP

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 255, 25 July 1935, Page 10

SEARCH HELD UP

Missing Aviator Mr. Hamish Armstrong UNFAVOURABLE WEATHER By Telegraph.—Press Association. Hastings, July 24. The search for the missing airman, Mr. Hamish Armstrong, both by air and by land, has been abandoned in the meantime. The weather everywhere along the ranges is so bad that Hying is quite impossible. All the purties searching on foot, it is understood, have been withdrawn, not only because of the weather, but also because since it has been made certain that the supposed traces of wreckage and smoke from a tire have no bearing on the mishap, there is nothing to guide searchers. It is thought quite unwise to allow parties on foot to continue aimless tramping merely in the hope of making a chance discovery. According to information received from Gardner and Yeoman’s mill, at the foot of the ranges, a remote settler living toward the Taihnpc side of the ranges, in a report sent by a roundabout route through Wanganui to the emergency radio station at Takapan base, savs he saw or heard a machine a quarter of an hour after it was seen over the hills above the mill. It has been impossible throughout the search to fly over that territory, but a search will be made there as soon as possible. An expert pilot belonging to the Hawke’s Bay Aero Club says that thogh there is a slender chance of finding Mr. Armstrong, it is not impossible that he made a safe landing in the country to the west of the ranges, a. possibility not counted upon, but it exists. The pilot says there are places in that territory where a machine could make a safe forced landing. “If only tlieie had been a frost and a clear day following.” said the pilot, “we might have been able to discover something. As it is it would have been only luck to have seen the missing machine. Wc have not had a fair chance since the search began.” It is estimated that the extent ol the whole area over which flights have been made is 640 square miles, and of the area concentrated upon about 100,000 acres, all of which is high country ranging up to 5000 or more feet and heavily wooded and deeply ravined. Owing to fog and snow it Ims been impossible to cross the Ruahines at the particular point where it is believed Mr. Armstrong might have crashed, but the ranges have been crossed elsewhere and skirted 30 or 40 miles along each side. CONDITIONS VERY COLD Dominion Special Service. Wanganui. July 24. Flight-Lieutenant lan Keith, pilotinstructor to the Western Federated Flying Flub, and Mr. E. J. Strachan, captain of the Wanganui Aero Club, participated in the search for Mr. Hamish Armstrong yesterday. They stated that conditions were extremely cobl, and flights were limited to from one and a half to two hours. The organisation of the search was very sound ami the aeroplanes were conducting their searches in pairs. AUCKLAND PLANES TO SEARCH Auckland. July 21. Two Auckland Aero Club pilots, Flight-Lieutenant D. M. Allan, chief instructor to the club, and Flight Lieutenant W. H. the club’s instructor for tlie Waikato district, are preparing to leave to-morrow in two Moth machines to augment the search for the missing airman. They are to make a search of the Kaimanawa Range near Taupo and to fly over the country south of Taupo from Taihape to Hastings.