LONG DISTANCE FLIGHTS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 24 March 1928, Page 11

LONG DISTANCE FLIGHTS

rpi-IE disappearance of Captain llinch-. "cliff,, and his companion, Miss Elsie Mack-ay has had its .parallels in the past. Other airmen have reappeared after forced descents on land and sea, but there have been many tragedies where mysterious pages have been written in the history of aviation. The epic case of the Australian, Harry Hawker, and his companion, Lieutenant Grieve, who, on their attempt to flv across the Atlantic, were a. week overdue when they turned up, having been picked up by a passing steamer, is the classic instance of the justification of faith in the ultimate triumph of good hick' against fate. Hawker, who had Lieutenant Ggievc as his navigator, was onlv 100 miles off achieving the honour of first/ crossing the North Atlantic when he wins forced down into the sea. He had taken off from Newfound- | land on May 18. In'tens e interest in the flight was taken on both sides of the Atlantic. Anxiety ran high when word came from the aviator that lie was running out of petrol 100 miles off the Irish coast. Days passed during which the silence of fate seemed to have engulfed them. A search by vessels proving fruitless, hope had almost been given up when word came from a coastguard at the North of Scotland that Hawker and Grieve had been rescued by the Danish steamer Mary,. A destroyer was sent out and the airmen were taken from the Marv and landed at Thurso. Scotland. ENGINE FAILED. It transpired tnat when 1850 miles hail been covered and the aeroplane was off the eoast of Ireland th c water circulation of the engine was found to have stopped. Tliis meant that they would have to descend. They cruised for two hours over the surface until the -Mlary was sighted, and they were taken on board A remarkable reception was accorded the aviators for their glorious failure when they arrived in London. They were decorated by the King with the Air Force Cross. The wreckage of their nVachine and the mails that it carried wer e afterwards picked up by a steamer. BRITAIN FIRST. A month later Britain secured the honour of being first in the air over the Atlantic, when Captain J. Alcock and Lieutenant A. W. Brown .crossed, covering 19315 miles in Inlir. 57-iniu. In recent months, since the wave of endeavour to conquer vast distances was reawakened, and has taken a heavy tell of young and gallant lives, luck lia s picked her favourites from the very arms of death. Contmonder Bvrd and three companions, who turned back to sea after actually flving around Paris in a fog, crashed off the coast and had to swim ashore.

THEIR TOLL OF LIFE

TRAGIC PAGES IN AIR HISTORY

’Major do Barros, the Brazilian airman, and three comrades were picked up by a passing steamer when their . machine cra'shed during a flight from , Europe to South America, and Miss j Ruth Elder and George Haideman, on j their way from America to Europe, were picked up by a steamer from their floating plane just before it caught, fire. VETL OF MYSTERY. The loss of the New Zealand aviators, Lieutenant M'oncrieff and Captain Hood, makes 31 lives sacrificed in little more than a year in attempts on longdistance flight's over the Atlantic, and the Pacific. Over nearly all the deaths, save four, which occurred in accidents when machines were taking off, the veil of mystery has descended, shutting out utterly* all trace of their remains and every inkling of how they met their doom. Three of the victims were women. Princess Lowenstcin Wortheim and Mrs Frances Grayson, who perished in the Atlantic, and Miss Mildren Doran, who disappeared during the Dole Prize flight from San Francisco to Honolulu. DEATH LIST The list of fatalities is now as follows: — France: Captain St. Roman and two companions lost during a flight from France to Brazil. Captain Nnngcssar and Coli, who set out from Paris for New York, and have not. been heard of since. Britain: Princess Lnwenst-cin Werfheim, Lieutenant-Colonel Minchin, and Leslie Hamilton, lost in the St. Raphael in a flight from England to America. -Canada: Captain Tally and Lieut. Medealf. lost in thc -Sir '.Tolln Garling while attempting a flight from Canada to England. United States: Jack Frost and Gordon Scott in the Golden Eagle, and Mis s Mildren Doran, .T. A. Pedlar and Lieut. V. Knope in the Miss Doran, who disappeared during the Dole Prize flight from San Francisco to Hawaii, and William Erwin and A. IT. Eiehwnldt, who W(>r { , lost while flying in the Spirit of Dallas in search of thc missing machines. Paul Redfern, lost in the Port of Brunswick, while attempting a nonstop flight from Georgia. IT.iS.A., to Brazil. Lieut.-Commander Davis and Lieut. Wooster, killed in the American Legion wlien trying to rise with a heavy fuel load for a flight from America In Bra nco. Two of Cap'tain Rene l-’onck’s coui- | panions killed when hi s machine crashI ed and caught fire when taking off for a flight from America to France. I Lloyd Bcrtaud, J. D. Hill, and Fhil- | lip Payne, lost in the Old Glory white attempting a flight from America to I Europe. Mrs Frances Grayson, Lieut. Oskar I Omdal, Brice Goldsborough, and Fred

Koehler, who disappeared in an attempt to flv . across the Atlantic from America. | New Zealand: Lieut. .T. R. M'oncrieff I and Captain G. Hood, lost on flight 1 across Tasman. 1 Four successful non-stop flights from North America and Europe, and four flights from San Francisco to Hawaii, are the achievements for which this huge price in lives has (been paid. No bodies were ever recovered. The only machines of which wreckage was found were the Old Glory and the machiiip used by Captain ,St. Roman. NU NGEiSSO R’S FATE. For weeks the eves of the civilised world were turned on the search'made for Xungessor and Coli, who, in May last year, were the first, to pay the penalty of extreme hardihood when they flew out of human ken in an attempt to cross the Atlantic from France to America. They made history in more ways than one. Their flight began the wave of endeavour in long distance flying that only came to a temporary lull last year after the Dole Prize race. Their fate was the first in the long and grim chapter of tli c failures that has been writen side bv side with the stary of illustrious achievements. Reports indicating that the aviators may have reached some point in the region of Labrador persisted for more than a month after they had left Paris and vanished over the Atlantic.

Naval tugs and coastguard craft scoured the coast. It. was even proposed that the dirigible, Los Angeles, should be sent, but this was abandoned when it was pointed but that the air-, ship’s supply of helium was not sufficient to last during a voyage aver Lab. rndor. A reward of £IOOO was offered by Mr Raymond Orteig for any aviator discovering Nnngessor or traces of his machine. Nevertheless, in spite of all attempts, no trace was ever found and n<i clue to the mystery of the fate of the airmen has ever been revealed. Within a few months, While Schlee and Brack, Chamberlain and Levine and Byrd had flown across the Atlantic, the St. Raphael, th ( , Sir John Carling, and the Old Glory had shared the fate of the White Bird in the Atlantic and the -Miss Doran, the Golden Eagle and the Spirit of Dallas had been swallowed up in the wastes of the Pacific. TASMAN ’S VTCTr-MiS. Prior to the disappearance of Lieut. „M oiicrielf and Captai n . Hood, the only i'thor case of an aviator vanishing ill Australian and New Zealand waters was in I!C0, when Captain Stu'tt, an instructor in the air force at Melbourne sot out over Bass Straits in an aeroplane to search for the missing .schooner, Amelie J. .11,, was never seen again. Reports that an aeroplane had been seen among the islands off the northeast of Tasmania led to the belief that he may have landed on some out-of the-wav spot, but a search failed to clear up the mystery, and no trace of him or his machine was ever found.