THOSE SMOKE SIGNALS

Evening Star, Issue 19764, 14 January 1928, Page 10

THOSE SMOKE SIGNALS

PROBABLY A SCRUB FIRE (Feb United Press Association.! WELLINGTON, January 14. Further reports re the supposed smoke signals from the missing airmen go to show that it was probably a scrub lire. Similar smoke was seen two days ago. The police in the district have taken no further action. Search parties are out in that direction, and would have seen the smoke and no doubt have reported the matter had thev considered it necessary. Both the Post Office and the police have investigated the smoke seen rising in the hills behind Levin and are of the opinion that it comes from a scrub fire on the properly of Bobbie Bros., on the heights above Ihakara. The police are taking no further action, but the Post Office officials may receive further reports. CAPTAIN BUCKLEY DELAYED BLENHEIM, January 14. Captain Buckley was advised by Wellington to-day to proceed with the plan to patrol the west coast from Farewell Spit to Karamea, but heavy southerly weather now prevails, and nothing can be done. The airmen think that the clouds are massed practically all over the territory to be covered, rendering any flight useless. Everything was ready for the flight this morning. STICK TO THEIR STATEMENT WELLINGTON, July 14. Emir stewards of the steamer Arahnra remain unshaken in their belief that they saw the light of an aeroplane on Tuesday night at 11.13. They say they kept it under observation for three minutes. They could hear nothing, but say that the noise on a steamer of the size of the Arahura was sufficient to drown the noise of a plane as far distant as (his one, which they estimated would he probably eight miles. The light moved from a point ahead of the Arahura to a point astern, and could not possibly have, been Iho light ot a scow on account of the speed of the movement. FEDERATE SOUTHERLY WEATHER WELLINGTON, January f t. The tug Toia. radio.,: “Will bo at latitude llkleg tiUinin south and at l"odeg ilomiu cast about 9 a.m. on Eumlay; moderate southerly weather.” NO SPECIAL GALL SIGNALS RECEIVED WELLINGTON, January 14. A telegram from Sydney yesterday said that the statement had been made there that call signs and an interpretation code to be used in the wireless apparatus installed on the aeroplane were wired to the Government ■wireless station at Wellington and to ships within wireless distance of Sydney and Wellington. This statement was referred to the Secretary-General of the Post Office, who gives it a specific denial. No information was received by the department in regard to any special code signals or interpretation code signals to be used on the airplane’s wireless apparatus. Tho only arrangement with the department was that the aeroplane should send a continuous whine for five minutes at each quarter ot tho hour. This apparently was not done, as the whine received was over longer periods and at irregular times. HD DOUBT ABOUT IT THE SIGNALS FROM THE ’PLANE CJI KLSTCHU.BCTf, January 14. Mr li. J. Baggs, who was detailed by the Telegraph Department to pick up the signals from the airmen, says fie has no doubt that the signals received from 5.12 to 5.22 on the day of the flight were from the ’plane. They wore first picked up on a wave-length of 33.35 metres, and no commercial stations were sending on that wave length at that time. STATEMENTS DISCREDITED WELLINGTON, January 14. Mrs Hood discredits the statements that her husband did not know the Morse code. She declares it would have been impossible for her husband to have qualified as a captain in the Royal Air Force without being able to satisfy the examiners that he had a practical working knowledge of the Morse code. Even when he went annually to Christchurch to undergo the refresher courses she understood that practice in Morse signalling was part of the programme. Mr# Moncrieff also declared that her husband had -passed the qualifying test of a certain number of words per minute. She was confident, also, of Lieutenant Moncrieff’s navigational qualifications, for he had spent the past six months studying the subject.