NO TRACE OF AIRMAN

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 25 July 1935, Page 7

NO TRACE OF AIRMAN

ONLY SLENDER HOPES HELD WEATHER HAMPERS SEARCHERS FLYING QUITE IMPOSSIBLE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WAIPUKURAU, July 24. No trace of Hamish Armstrong, the Akitio (aeroplane pilot who has been missing since Sunday morning, has been found though G4O square miles have now been searched. An area of about 100,000 acres has been concentrated upon. Only a slender chance of Mr ■Armstrong being found is held, the search being gravely handicapped by the weather. The radio base ,a.t Takapau operated by Mr G. Taylor, assisted by Air 11. Etheridge, is being shifted to Kereru. Alessrs E. Hunt and H. Roberts, who have been maintaining an outpost at Thompson’s mill at Ashley Clinton, will go to Kereru, while the Utiku outpost, (Messrs S. Ilislop and K. King, on the other ranges has moved north to Otupae station.

Alessrs Hartgill and Cyril Hunter in charge of operations tat Takapau left for Hastings to assist in arrangements for an extended search to the north. Air W. Craig is in charge at Takapau in the meantime.

An endeavour will be made to send searchers ’by car from Hastings over Kuripapanaga Road toward Taihape and operate over the area between •'Wakarara, Kereru, Kuripapanaa and Aloawhango. The report from Yeoman and Gardiner’s mill late this afternoon showed that foot search parties, with the exception of the- Barlow family, had returned safely to the Wakarara base. No anxiety is felt as the members are familiar with the'countryside. It is still raining steadily and there is much fog.

FLYING IMPOSSIBLE. A Hastings message says that, the search for All* Armstrong both by air and by land has been abandoned in the meantime. The weather everywhere along the, ranges is so bad that flying is quite impossible. All parties searching on foot, it is understood, have been withdrawn, not only because of the weather, but also because, since it has been made certain that supposed traces of wreckage and smoke from a fire have no bearing on the mishap, that there is nothing to guide the searchers. It is thought quite unwise to allow parties on foot to continue aimless tramping merely in the hope of making; a chance discovery. - • According to information received from Gardner and Yeoman’s mill at the foot of the ranges, a. reiqote settler living towards the Taihape side- of the ranges, in a report sent by a roundabout route through Wanganui to the emergency radio' station at the Takapau base, says he saw or heard a machine a-quarter of an hour after it was seen over the hills above the mill. It has been impossible throughout the search to fly over that territory, but a search will be made there as soon as possible. An expert pilot of the Hawke’s Bay Aero Club says that though there is a slender chance of finding Air Armstrong it is not impossible that he made a safe landing in the country to the west of the ranges. The possibility should not be 'counted upon, but it exists. The pilot says there are places in that territory where a machines could make a safe forced landing.

' “If there had been a frost and d clear day following,” said the pilot, “we might have been "able to discover something. As it is it would seem only luck to have seen the missing machine. We have not had a fair chance since the search began.’’

rough country. It is estimated that the extent of the whole area over which the flights have been made is G4O square miles and the area of the district concentrated upon about 100,00 M acres, all of which is high country, ranging up to 5000 or more feet, heavily wooded and deeply ravined.

Owing to fog and snow it has been impossible to cross the Rualiines at the particular point where it is believed that, Mr Armstrong might have crashed. but the ranges have been crossed elsewhere and skirted for 30 or 40 miles along each side. Two Auckland Aero Club pilots, Flight-Lieutenant D. M. Allan, chief instructor to the club, and FlightLieutenant W. 11. Lett, the club’s instructor for the Waikato district, are preparing to leave Auckland to-morrow in two Moth machines to augment the search for the missing airman. They are to make a search of the Kaimanawa range near Taupo and to fly over tlie eountrv south of Taupo from Tailiape. to Hastings.

Six ’planes were engaged to day in addition to two which operated from Palmerston North on the western side of the ranges.