FUEL FOR NINE HOURS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 131, 1 December 1930, Page 9

FUEL FOR NINE HOURS

AN OLD MACHINE

THE HAZARD INCREASED

MIAMA, 28th November. No trace of Mrs. Miller or her machine has teen found, and it is feared that she has been lost at sea. Her machine was an old one. ,A message from Havana states that there is a possibility that Mrs. Miller did not attempt to reach Miami. A reporter of a Havana newspaper in a statement said he saw the aviatrix on Friday. 'She told him that she would land at Miami if the weather was favourable, but otherwise would continue north as far as possible. She had fuel for a nine hours' flight, and the distance across the Gulf was not far. It is felt by some that Mrs. Miller has reached the United States at a . point where 'communication is difficult. A premonition of death which she thrust asido "through fear of being thought a coward haunted Mrs. Keith Miller. ALL HOPE ABANDONED. Practically all hope of her safety is abandoned. Searching parties in six aeroplanes have flown for hours over the Gulf and Florida Keys without find- . ing any trace. Friends here accused themselves of not having prevented her, forcibly, if necessary, . from making the flight, against which were great odds in view of the poorly conditioned 'plane, the extremely rough weather, and the men- - tal hazard of flying over water. "I do not know why.it is, but some- > thing tells me I am going down," she said before the take-off from Havana for Florida. "I have had the feeling since I crossed from Florida. Somehow or other^ I cannot shake it off." She called the 'plane "an unair•worthy crate,'' explaining that it was a conditionally-licensed ship she rescued from a junk pile and reconditioned. "I am trying to put myself over as a commercial pilot. If I make a flight like that in an old ship without the usual equipment, it ought to be easy to get some company interested in using me as a regular pilot." LACK OP INSTRUMENTS. Many who were in contact with Mrs. Miller at Havana remarked at her preoccupation and comments at not being able to eat or sleep properly. She said that what worried her most was her. lack of blind-flying instruments or a turn-and-bank indicator. Mrs. Miller said: "Frankly, I cannot afford one," when referring to the latter instrument. Aviation officials returning, from the search, declared .that not even a stout seaplane could have stayed afloat. Mrs. Miller had a collapsible rubber boat, but she had expressed doubt as to her ability to inflate it. Since coming to the- United States from Australia' three years ago, Mrs. Miller had acted as, a demonstrator of small 'planes and amphibians, and was instrumental in popularising aviation among women. COLLAPSIBLE BOAT. A message from Pittsburgh states that Captain Lancaster, who accompanied Mrs. Miller on her flight three years ago from London to Australia, said he thought she was forced down at sea. He expressed the fear that she must be afloat somewhere, between Cuba and the Florida Coast in her collapsible rubber boat. . The backers of Mrs. Miller's Pitts-burg-Havana flight have expressed the hope that she might have landed somewhere in Florida. (Eeceived Ist December, 8 a.m.) NEW YOKE, 30th November. John Liggett, one of the backers of Mrs. Miller, left by passenger aeroplane to fly to Miami to assist in the search for the missing airwoman.