TEE FATED KOOKABURRA

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6900, 4 May 1929, Page 9

TEE FATED KOOKABURRA

A PREVIOUS FORCED LANDING. SERIOUS HANDICAP THROUGH LOSS OF TOOLS. REPAIRS WITH SCREWDRIVER AND CORKSCREW. United Press Association —By Electric I Telegraph—Copyright. ADELAIDE, May 3. Martin Krommer, a gold prospector, now visiting Adelaide .tells of a romantic meeting with Anderson and Hitchcock 34 miles south of Oodnadatta, on April 9th, the day before they reached Alice Springs prior to their fatal mishap in the desert. Krommer was sitting on the roadside, when the Kookaburra alighted near-by. He hurried to the plane and saw the aviators examining the engine. Anderson asked Hitchcock for a box of tools. Hitchcock replied, “Somebody stole them while I was in the hospital.” Hitchcock had had an illness some time before the flight. Anderson retorted, “Why didn’t you tell me at Broken Hill?” They worked on the engine, using a screw-driver as a chisel and the end of a corkscrew as a hammer. They had difficulty in getting into the air until Krommer held one wing and Hitchcock the other. Then both thanked Krommer, shook hands with him, and flew away. , Krommer said it seemed that the aviators were very short of tools, duo to theft by somebody.

COMPASS PITTED DAY BEFORE DEPARTURE . WAS USED BY CAPTAIN LANCASTER. SYDNEY, May 3. It ha 3 now been disclosed that the compass with which Anderson and Hitchcock were taken so far out of their course on the ill-fated Kookaburra flight was fitted into the plane only the day before it left Richmond. The eompass was that used by Captain Lancaster in his flight from England to Australia in the Red Rose with Mrs Miller, and it had not been used or tested since.