SAFETY IN FLIGHT

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 139, 7 March 1936, Page 22

SAFETY IN FLIGHT

Gangsters Steal Aeroplanes

Police chiefs on the Continent now believe that a secret organisation is iu process of formation for. the disposal of stolen aeroplanes. • Not long ago a machine vanished from the aerodrome at Marseilles, and was never seen again. Another disappeared from Budapest. Still more recently a private owner had his machine stolen from a flying ground near Amsterdam. And other cases have been reported from various parts of Europe. Aeroplanes are not easy things to steal. The movements of aircraft are reported by wireless by the principal air stations. Each machine has to have its log-book and official papers. Pilots must be ready at any time to show’ their flying certificates and other papers. But the authorities now take the view’ that when an aeroplane is stolen, the thief knows that if he dodges across a frontier, flyin° fo some remote and secret rendezvous, lie will be 'able to dispose of the machine, without any awkward question® to those who are waiting to receive il. Police departments throughout the world are now facing a new problem. It is the growing use of aeroplanes by bootleggers, drug traffickers, smugglers. kidnappers, hold-un men. and other modern breakers of the law. At the Tempelhof airport. Berlin, fast monoplanes of the flying police are now always ready to dash off. at a moment’s notice, in pursuit of some gangster of the air. . Not long ago the German air police pulled off a brilliant, coup. The kidnappers of the little daughter of a ri T merchant had sent a oarrier-pige.on in

a basket to the child’s father telling him that a ransom in big notes must be attached to the bird, which must then be released so that it would make its way back to their secret hiding place.

The bird with the ransom was duly released. But it was followed through the air by a high-speed police aeroplane, the pilot of which managed to keep it in sight, and saw the bird alight on a pigeon-cote at a lonely farm. .

Promptly be wirelessed the necessary information *to a mobile police unit which was in touch with him from the ground, with the result that the gang were caught red-handed, both the little girl and the ransom being retrieved.

Not long ago armed robbers, after holding up a bank at Karlsbad, motored out to a waiting aeroplane and made a dpsh to escape by air. But they were chased by a couple of pilots in a military aeroplane and had to land before long owing to shortage of petrol. Whereupon the pilots of the pursuing machine held them up with a machine-gun till police arrived in a fast car and they were arrested. In Jugoslavia two daring gangsters stole an aeroplane and, flying into Rumania, raided a post office and stole a number of registered mail-bags. Then they vanished skyward in the direction of Russia, never being heard of again.

In America, the Federal Flying Police, who have been organised by the United States Government, are reported to be increasingly busy dealing with gangsters who are beginning tn utilise fast aeroplanes.