DID THEY MISS?

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10724, 23 October 1928, Page 6

DID THEY MISS?

HOOD AND MONCRIEFF’S ILLFATED FLIGHT.

SIGNIFICANT FACT IN RECENT TRIP. (Special To The Times). WELLINGTON, Oct. 20. New light upon the possible fate of the unfortunate Captain Hood and Lieut. Moncneif, who perished mysteriously last summer when attempting to fly the Tasman Sea is shed by the return flight of the Southern Cross. Between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. New Zealand time, states a navigating officer who jilotted the line of the flight upon a chart from the radioed reports,". the airplane swung round until she was for a time 150 miles' south of Sydney and 180 miles south of the course which the ’plane_ pursued during the previous hour. When this occurred the Southern Cross was 410 miles from Cape Eginont. Had such an error been made earlier it would have meant a difference o." over 400 miles to the ’plane by the time that the Tasman Sea was conquered. This appears to colour one of the views advanced at the time of the search for Moncrieff and Hood, that, being inexperienced, in navigation, they had missed New Zealand altogether. A slight intensification of the drift from the cours* set by the. Southern Cross, if matte on the way from Australia to N.Z. would .mean that an airplane which set out for Wellington would land on Stewart Island.