AIRWOMAN SAFE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 294, 9 November 1934, Page 7

AIRWOMAN SAFE

FOUND BY CONSTABLE

RAN OUT OF PETROL,

MISS THOMPSON’S EXPERIENCE

(United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received November 9, 11.5 a.m. DARWIN, Nov. 9. Miss Freda Thompson, the missing lady flier, was discovered by Constable Gordon Stott, of the Northern Territory Mounted Police, sixteen miles from Tennant’s Creek and about 600 miles from Darwin. She is safe and the machine is undamaged.

Constable Stott took Miss Thompson to Tennant’s Creek, from which place she proposes to leave as soon as she can get petrol. Miss Thompson said she ran out of petrol while lost and had landed in a clear place in sand and spinifex country. She spent the night by the ’plane. Constable Stott found her near the overland telegraph, with the ’plane a short distance away. The Civil Aviation Department had issued urgent instructions to pilot Harold Owen at Darwin to begin a search. The fact that the overland telegraph line to Northern Australia is down in several places owing to recent rough weather was expected to render the search difficult. The only means of communicating with the north is by radio with Newcastle Waters.

The New Zealand aviator, FlyingOfficer Kay, who is now in Sydney stated to-day, before the news that Miss Thompson had been found was known : “Miss Thompson is lost where Piper and I were. lost five years ago. It is most inhospitable country. She is probably in the vicinity of Tennant’s Creek.”