LOST AIRMEN

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 12 April 1929, Page 5

LOST AIRMEN

NO NEWS RECEIVED.

SEAPLANE CARRIER SENT. KEITH ANDERSON MISSING. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) SYDNEY, April 11. No news has been received of the lost Southern Gross airmen. The seaplane carrier Albatross sails immediately for the north-west coast, carrying seaplanes and 350 men to scour Hie country for the missing airmen. Going at full speed, the Albatross is expected to reach the scene of action in a week. R.A.F. seaplanes now at Singapore may also, assist. Careful checking of the last radio messages received from the Southern Gross by the newspaper “Sun” suggest to the aviation authorities the theory that Kingsford Smith, after flying over the Port George mission station and correcting his " position, followed the course of the Prince Regent River and came down somewhere in that vicinity. Mr Keith Anderson, who left Alice Springs yesterday morning for the 700 mile hop to Wyndliam lias not reported since lie left there. There is a landing ground and petrol supplies at Wave Hill. 500 miles from Alice Springs, but Mr Anderson has not been seen there.

ARRANGEMENTS FOR SEARCH

WAITING FOR MORE PETROL. 7tv ' r **)egrAj>>i—Association. * INVERCARGILL, April 11. A wireless message picked up in Invercargill this evening Irom Sydney stated that the intelligence officer for the northern district of Western Australia expressed the opinion that no undue alarm should be felt for. the safety of the missing airmen until at least three weeks had passed. He said that if the airmen were walking towards civilisation the rate of progress would be so slow that it may take weeks to get clear of the rough country. There would he little prospect .of sighting the lost plane from the air, unless the missing men had means of signalling. A ground search Avas more likely to yield results. Another report stated that already many parties of friendly blacks were willing to commence a search, and with this end in A r iew bases were being established. Until the arrival of more petrol the whole position was being reviewed, and on the arrival of the resident magistrate from Broome at Derby a systematised search AA r ould he commenced by land and air. It was also announced that the country in which Keitli Anderson is believed to" be lost is even more desolate than the Kimberley district.

FOOD SUPPLY

FOR SEVERAL DAYS. SMITHYS ’FLU AND SOUTHERN CROSS TROUBLE. COUNTRYSIDE DESCRIBED. Sydney exchanges to hand this week throw sonic j, light on the flight of the Southern Cross and its possible fate. Regarding the suspicions that a fake message was sent which was the cause of the airmen: starting on the voyage when the conditions had been reported unsuitable additional information is given. “T read part of the message wluck was received at Richmond,” said Mr L. Kingsford Smith, brother of the airman, “but I did not see the signature. My brother put it in. his pocket and started off, thinking the weather was. good.” Then, suffer a message received at 3 nun. on Sunday, the airmen reported e.t 12.20 p.m. that their petrol avos running out, and that they were descending. The cause and manner of the, descent is also a mystery. Sydney aviators who know the meticulous care AAdth which Squadron-Leader Kingsford Smith prepares his flights arc of opinion that he AA r ould not, unless there A\ r ere insurmountable remain in the air sufficiently long to “permit the petrol supply to run so low - a.s to force the machine out of control. There are other elements which, however, are openly discussed by aviators. These included the possibility of Ivingsford Smith being so prostrated by his

recent attack of: influenza that the strain of the prolonged flight was too much for him physically, and that, he, or Flight-Lieutenant Illrn, had not the same control over the machine as in. normal circ urns ranees. A further fpossibility is that the machine may have been flown over the headland • and a landing effected on sonic isolated beach. SMITHY A SICK MAN. “We a,re quite, confident, although I must admit 1 ami feeling a bit seedy,” was the parting message of SquadronLeader Ivingsford Smith, before stepping into the Southern Cross to’ set out on the 12,000-milo flight to England. “Our main object,” lie said, “is to get to London comfortably and safely, and if wc break a record on the way, well and good. We arc not going to take any undue risks in order to do so. ’ ’

Mr and Mrs Kingsford Smith, the parents of “Smithy,” were among the first to reach Richmond from Sydney to see the flight begin. Both of them expressed concern for his health. “I am much more worried about my son’s health than I am about the hazards of the flight generally,” said Mrs Kingsford Smith. “He has been very ill during the past few days, and on Monday his temperature was 104. I believe lie was still running a temperature yesterday. He really should not have gone to his office and bustled about the city on Thursday. I have the greatest confidence in the ultimate success of the flight. None of us believe that it. holds the risks of the Pacific flight. Oiir main anxiety is Charlie’s health. That is worrying me considerably.” The message of their descent was the last news of the airmen except that the monks at Drysdalc Mission Station reported halving seen the Southern Cross overhead, flying in a south-westerly direction, on the Sunday. The Drysdalc River Spanish Benedictine Mission Station is situated on Napier Broome Bay, a big inlet in the West Australian littoral, upwards of .100 miles to the west of the entrance! to Cambridge Gulf, Wyndhnmi, being on the eastern side of the gulf, at a point forty miles in from the open sea. The mission station is twenty miles to the west of the Drysdalc River, which, after flowing for several hundreds of miles, mostly through wildly fierce sandstone tableland country, enters the sea in: a shallow bight. The aboriginals of those parts arc ferocious, and have attacked the mis- ‘ sion station on two occasions since it I was founded, but the natives are gTadu-

ally coming under tlio sphere: of mission influence. Thu country immediately surrounding the station is of ai sandy nature and of the poorest character. There is a fair amount of open, sour, flat land ini the immediate neighbourhood. By overland travelling the mission station is one of the most isolated places in Australia, and only two parties have ever called at the little post, one being the exploring expedition led by Mr C. Price Conigrave, in 1911, and the other, some years later, under the charge of Mr W. ft. Easton, who is now o. member of tlie North Australia Commission. Some doubt had been expressed about the food supply the airmen carried with them, hut Mr Grey, managing director of the Atlantic Union Oil Company, stated that they had sufficient to last for several days. A note of pessimism has been struck by .Dr .T. A. Gilruth, former Administrator of the Northern Territory, who said that there would be little chance of a safe landing for flic Southern Cross on any part of the North Australian coast and its 200 miles of hinterland, except near a. township. The tropical weather was am important factor in the success or failure of a North Australian flight, said Dr Gilruth, but there were others no less important. Dr Gilruth added that the main hope was that the Aviation Department, might be able to scour the whole of the triangle bounded on the north-west by the coastline, and on the south-east by a lime drawn between Derby and Wyndham, • but it should bo done with *4ll speed. While an aborigine could exist there, a. European, without the help of the blacks, would starve. Therefore, if still alive, the airmen's plight was precarious.