’PLANE MISHAP

Hokitika Guardian, 16 March 1934, Page 6

’PLANE MISHAP

CRASH NEAR LITTLE AMERICA

BYRD’S WORK HANDICAPPED

(Per Press Association — Copyright.)

LITTLE AMERICA, March 15,

A single-engined Fokker monoplane, Blue Blade, one of four of the expedition, (Washed 'at 12.30 p.m. 'today, five hundred yards south of Little America. The pilot, Lieut-Oommander S. C. Hloasbach,. United States Navy, and three passengers, including Harry Young (New Zealand)- were severely shaken, and suffered slight cuts, but otherwise were uninjured. The plane was completely wrecked. ‘The’' engin<j aiKL' instrumchts can be salvaged. The Fokker had just taken off at twenty below zero for a test flight, preparatory to the southern flight, in company with the Pilgrim monoplane. Together the two planes were to transport- to the depot i!& a hundred miles south, food and stores required for the advanced winter base that Byrd proposed to establish at the Ross ice harrier, approximately two hundred miles south of Little America.

Tractors are now making ready here for the southern advance, and are to pick up the stores 'and relay them as far through as time and weather will permit. Byrd was disinclined to let the crash discourage him, and he immediately •arranged the various southern missions. Last week’s three days of blizzard and overcast skies, and the high drift laden winds have seriously delayed the projected southern excursion. “Good weather is too precious this season to ho wasted. So long as we have good weather from now until April 19 when the winter night sets in, it will he rare and we must take advantage of it.”