CREW IN PERIL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 16 April 1928, Page 10

CREW IN PERIL.

A TRSHTP LANDS IN SNOWSTORM. LAKEHURST, N.J., March 6. The dirigible Los Angeles was “walked’’ into her hangar here at 7.05 a.m. to-day after the crew had fought virtually all night to bring her to a landing in a blinding snowstorm. Back from a flight, to the Panama Canal zone, the big ship came over her Lakehonrst station shortly before midnight. 40-mile wind was blowing at that time, but Commander Charles E. Roseiulalil ordered, her moored to her mast. The force of the wind snapped the cable by which the crew attempted to make the ship fast. Then for three hours the Los Angeles cruised over the field finally attempting a ground landing. The first attempt failed when the blizzard, which was increasing in fury, tore the big ship away from the ground crew of 150 men. As the Los Angeles rose into the air she had carried four members of the ground crew with her. The men were clinging perilously to handrails of the cabin, exposed to the biting gale. A fifth man released his hold before the ship had risen 20ft and was injured .in the fall.

The second landing attempt shortly before 6 a.in. was successful, the wind and snow having subsided considerably at that hour. Once on the ground the crew experienced no difficulty “walking’ ’ the ship into her hangar. Although the flight to the Panama Canal zone had'been the most hazardous that the Los Angeles had undertaken since having flown to this country from Germany ,tho only real difficulties came in the last six hours' of the six-day cruise.