HOPES FADING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 69, 22 February 1937, Page 7

HOPES FADING

FOR MISSING AIRLINER. FRUITLESS SEARCH. MANY ’PLANES ENGAGED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received February 22, 10.35 a.m. SYDNEY, Feb. 22. Hopes that the personnel of Die missing Stinson ’plane will be found alive liavo been practically abandoned. The search by air and land throughout the week-end failed to reveal any trace of the ’plane which has been missing between Brisbane and Sydney since Friday. Miss Joan Ratten joined the searchers yesterday for the lost airliner, making two extensive flights. Fears are entertained that the ’plane lias crashed in the sea. Fourteen planes are engaged in the search. Reports have been received that the airliner was seen passing over various points south of Taree, which lead to the belief that the machine vanished within half an hour’s flight of Sydney. One report stated that the Stinson was seen over tiosford between 4.30 and 5 o’clock on Friday afternoon. The area in which the ’plane apparently . disappeared is closely settled, and it is considered .to be almost unbelievable that a crash on land would not have been reported within a day. It is reported from Brisbane that tho man who travelled with the Stinson as J. Barnett was J. R. Binstead, of Manly, who was flying under an assumed name because his wife was nervous of air travel and he did not want her to know lie was making the trip.