MATTERN IN SIBERIA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 134, 9 June 1933, Page 7

MATTERN IN SIBERIA

GASSED BY PETROL FUMES

STORY OF PERIL

United Pres3 Association—By Electric Tel» crapb—Copyright i (Received June 9, 10 a.m.) LONDON, June S. Mr. James Slattern, who is flying solo round .the., world, made a forced landing at Prokoplevsk in Siberia between Omsk and Krasnoiarsk; In a special message, telephoned from Belovo, Mr. Mattern says that he was forced to land owing to being gassed by petrol fumes. The landing damaged the stabiliser. "I left Omsk," he adds, ''at 1.10 in tho morning. Tour hours later I began to feel queer, and then nausea, as I caught a real whiff of the fumes due to a leaky petrol pipe. With only miles of trees below and my head spinning like a top I tried tilting the aeroplane to get fresh air. I was just wondering what was going to happen when I saw a clear patch and headed for it, fighting the fumes. I don't know how .1 landed. I found Russians, employed in a workers' settlement, besieging the aeroplane. I crawled out and collapsed. Tho workers took me to a hut, where I lay in a bunk terribly sick. Later I felt better and inspected the aeroplane and found I had made a lucky landing, striking the ground With the tail and cracking the stabiliser. Tho Russians sent mechanics from Novosibirsk and also an aeroplane with enough steel to patch my machine. I shall make her fly to Krasnoiarsk, where she can be properly repaired.