TOLL OF OCEAN FLIGHTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 16 January 1928, Page 5

TOLL OF OCEAN FLIGHTS

MANY FAILURES OCCUR SERIOUS LOSS OF LIFE BAD RECORD OF LAST YEAR Against the successful trans-ocean flights must-be set a large number of failures, many'attended with serious loss of life, especially during 1927. Following is a list of the major undertakings which linvd come, to grief:—. Harry Cl. Jlawkcn and Lieut.-Com-mander .Mackenzie Grieve attempted a non-stop trans-Atlantic flight from Newfoundland to Ireland oil loth May, 1919. They flew 1225 miles before they wore forced to alight in the sea 850 miles from Ireland. The fliers were not heard of for six days, and were given up for lost, but were picked tip by a Danish steamer and safely landed. Captain John Rodgers, with a crow of four men in a large machine, attempted a non-stop flight from San Francisco to Hawaii in 1925.’ He. came down mi route, and after being missing for several days was picked up hv a. submarine.

DISASTERS IN THE ATLANTIC Captain rle Saint-Roman, with Commander Mounoyres, left Marseilles on 17(h April, 1927, in a Farman seaplane for Buenos Aires. At Casablanca the floats of the machine were replaced with

wheels. The French Department of Aeronautics objected to this, and ordered the flight to he abandoned, but the two officers persisted. They set. off from Saint-Louis, Senegal, ou sth May, for Pernambuco, Brazil, taking’ a mechanic with them. Nothing more was heard until 20th June, when fragments of a machine believed to ho theirs were washed up- on the Brazilian coast. •Captain Nungesser, the famous French ace, and ,M. Coli, attempted a westward trans-Atlantic flight, leaving Lo Bourget • early on Blli May, 1927. With 16£ hours of daylight they hoped to make a landfall at Cape Race, Newfoundland, and follow Jhe coast- to New York. Their machine was an aeroplane with a watertight fuselage. Fog and storms were afterwards reported over the Atlantic, and in spite of many days’ search both at sea and in the interior of Newfoundland and the mainland, no trace of the machine was found. The £7OOO prize offered by Mr Dole, for an air race from Oakland. California, to Hawaii, led to the loss, last year, of three machines and the lives of six men and one woman. Fivo machines'set out, but one came early to grief. The -Golden Eagle, ‘with- Messrs Jack Frost and Gordon Scott and the Miss Doran, with -Miss ’Mildred Doran and Messrs J. A. Pedlar and V. R. Knqpe, were lost. A third machine, containing Messrs W. 0. Erwin and-A. H. Eiclnvaldt, which flew from Oakland two days later, in search of the missing planes, was never heard of again. Two competing maeh-' incs reached their destination.

FATE OF A PRINCESS!'

Paul Redfern left Georgia, Brunswick, on 25th August, 1927, in the plane Port of Brunswick, in an attempt to fly to Brazil. He was last, seen by a Norwegian steamer on 26th August within 165 miles of the coast of South America, when he .was heading towards the mainland of Venezuela. Captain Leslie Hamilton, Lieut.-Colo-nel iMinchin and Princess LowensteinWertheim left Wiltshire on Ist September, 1927, in the monoplane St. Raphael to fly to Ottawa, The attempt at the trans-Atlantic flight from east to west, previously accomplished only by the dirigible "R 34, in 1919, failed, and the aviators and their machine were never found. T Captain Terry Tully and Lieut. Janie? Metcalf set out on a flight from London, 'Ontario, to London, England, in the monoplane Sir John-Carling on 7th September, 1927. The machine Was not heard'of after passing Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. Mr, Lloyd Bertrand, Mr James de Witt Hill, and Mr Philip Payne, a New York journalist, left Maine on 6tli September, 1927, in the monoplane Old Glory, hound for Rome. The steamer Kyle found the wreckage of the machine 650 miles off Newfoundland, hut the men were never found.

RESCUE FROM BURNING PLANE

Miss Ruth Elder ahcl Captain George Haldermarin, who * left Now York for Paris on 11th OctobAy 1927, in the American Girl, were forced clown about 600 miles from the Azores. Both aviators were picked up by the Dutch steamer Bareudrecht while their plane was burning. The German seaplane D 1220, which was being used for a flight across the Atlantic to New York, came , down off the Azores on 13th November, 1927. The airmen jumped into the sea and were picked up\by a motor-boat. Mrs Frances Grayson, Lieut. Oscar Omdal, of the Norwegian Navy, the pilot, Mr Brice Goldsborough, navigation'and radio engineer, and iMr Fred Koehler left New York in the aeroplane Dawn on 23rd December,' 1927, for Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, from where it was intended to attempt a. flight across the Atlantic. ’lhey wove not heard of again, but a tramp steamer reported hearing the sound ot an aeroplane engine, followed by a splash.