NON-STOP FLIGHT

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3374, 6 October 1931, Page 5

NON-STOP FLIGHT

JAPAN TO AMERICA. SAFELY ACCOMPLISPIED BY AMERICANS. Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 9.5 a.m.) New York, October 5. A message .from Wenatchee (Washington) states ’that Pangborn and Herndon landed at the airport there at 7.14 a.m. to-day, thus completing a non-stop flight from Japan. The flight took about forty-one hours thirteen minutes. The airmen dropped their landing gear after leaving Japan to lighten the load. The 'plane without its landing gear settled on its belly, tipped on its nose and then settled back and slid along slowly in a cloud of dust, coming to rest on its left wing-, the propeller being broken. Herndon was cut over the left eye. Pangborn said: “Boys, we are glad to get here. Give me a cigarette.” A representative of the Japanese newspaper Asahi met them with a 25,000 dollar cheque for their completion of the first non-stop flight from Japan. Pangborn said they had nearly reached Spokane when they turned back owing to too foggy weather, in an attempt to proceed to Salt Lake City to try to set a world distance record.

There were a hundred gallons of gas left when they landed. Mrs. Pangborn greeted her son. She was crying when he landed. The distance is approximately 4600 miles. The aviators said the steel skid on the plane saved them from wreck on landing. “We were on the right course all the way but awfully sleepy,” Pangborn said.

Pangborn was at the controls when they landed. He did most of the piloting. “We had good weather the first thousand miles and then climbed 17,000 feet trying to get over the clouds, hitting really heavy clouds at Dutch Harbour on Sunday at daybreak,” said Herndon. “The ice began to form on the wings as we climbed up and down, but we couldn’t get over it. The plane was loggy, but flew on through it. _ “We each snoozed a little sitting up in the plane,” said Pangborn.

The two American airmen, Messrs. Pangborn and Herndon, who have been detained here for some time, took off from Sabushire beach, Japan, on Sunday, at 7 a.m. for a non-stop flight across the Pacific.