MIRACULOUS RESCUE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 47, 24 January 1939, Page 7

MIRACULOUS RESCUE.

AIRLINER SURVIVORS,

GRAPHIC STORIES

NEW YORK, Jan. 22. A storm is delaying the tanker Esso Baytown, which is plunging to New York with 10 survivors of the 13 passengers aboard the Imperial Airways’ tlying-boat Cavalier, which made a forced landing in the Atlantic, midway between New York and Bermuda, yesterday. Bho is now expected to arrive at 10 a.m. to-morrow.

The captain of the Cavalier, Mr Rowland Anderson, one of those picked up, is reported to have been critically hurt. Several of the tanker’s crew are also suffering from exposure and injuries. The first rescue boat to be lowered overturned. A second boat rescued the seamen and then made the journey through heavy seas to the tiny group of half-frozen men and women who had been drifting lor 10 hours. The survivors told the officers of the tanker that the engines of the flving-boat failed because of ice choking the carburettor. The landing was so rough that the occupants were hurled against the walls of the cabin, several being injured. The all-metal hull of the Cavalier ! was apparently split upon impact with the water, as the ’plane sank so fast that there was barely time to get out. Working heroically, the crew released the passengers through the emergency doors. Mrs Noakes, wife of the American business man who was drowned, said that she saw her husband with his head gashed and bleeding, struggling to hold on to his lifebelt, which he had l>eon unable to fasten. She tried (o reach him, but he lost his grip and sank.

Throughout the afternoon the survivors floated on their lifebelts, keeping closely grouped together and scanning the horizon for rescue ships. After dark, the Esso Raytown reached the spot, hut passed on. The survivors said that they saw the vessel’s lights and screamed frantically. Some men started to swim toward the lights. The tanker later obtained the true position of the Cavalier at its last report and circled back. Aviators and seamen considered the rescue miraculous. It was the first rescue in history of a commercial aircraft forced down at sea.