HINCHLIFFE'S SPIRIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20028, 18 August 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

HINCHLIFFE'S SPIRIT.

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD. EXTRAORDINARY STORY, ■ HOW THE AVIATORS DIED, WIDOW AND A MEDIUM. An extraordinary story of how Captain Hinchliffc' and the Hon. Elsie Mackay lost their lives while, to fiy across the Atlantic last March was related to a correspondent of the Sunday Express last month by Mrs. Hincbliffe, widow of the famous airman. The story is stated to have been communicated by the departed airman himself to a spiritualistic medium in London, who in turn passed if. On to Mrs. Hinchliffc on the advice of Six Arthur Conan Doyle. "I had never been interested in spiritualism before," said Mrs. llinchliffe, " and when the medium wrote to me saying she had a message from my husband I did not believe , her, > Later, however, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote and asked me to accept the medium's message and suggested that I should meet her if possible. 1 have met her a number of times since then, and have received so many convincing messages of intimate detail from my husband that I am perfectly satisfied that this is his own version of the flight." Mrs. Ilinchliffe states that her husband's own words as they reached her from the other world are as follows:

" After passing over Mizzen Head, in tha North of Ireland, we steered west-noi*th-west for 850 miles. The weather was good but cloudy, and there was a little fog. This was between 2 p.m, and 10 p.m., and oiu* speed was eighty to ninety miles per hour.

" Teeth of a Terrific Gale." "At 10 p.m. wc began to .encounter bad weather, but our spirits -were high and we were still going well. We increased our speed to 100 miles an hour up to midnight, and went in a more northerly direction. ;We had gone, , roughly speaking, 900 miles before we ran into bad vreather." \ " You will find this. correct," said Mrs. Hinchliffe, " by referring to the Air Ministry's chart of the -weather reports for that night.". The story proceeded:—" We ran right into the teeth o£ a .terrific gale—wind, sleet, and rain, The wind broke the left strut and ripped the fabric. I saw that further headway was impossible, and I deliberately altered my course to the south, hoping to fly out of the gale and reach the Azores. "We flew south from midnight till three a.m., gradually coming down lower. At one aim., however, I knew that we were beaten, as the compass had gone wrong and one of the plugs was missing. ." When Miss Mackay realised this she became unconscious and never recovered. I carried on the best way I could for two more hours, and at three a.m. landed in the water One mile north of the Azores. We did not crash.

" I took a last drink of tea from my flask and set out to swim for the shore I swam for twenty minutes, but the currents were too strong, and I became uncbnscious .and was finally drowned. Miss Mackay's end was peaceful. She was drowned in the machine while still unconscious". " Another Remarkable Message."" . .Mrs.. Hinchliffe's said that sines—this message was received she had another one equally remarkable from her husband, saying that he had met Leslie Hamilton, who was lost last year while attempting an east-to-west flight with Princess Lowenstein Wortheim and Colonel Minchin. " Hamilton and I have met on the other side," said Captain Hinchliffo in this message, " and we have talked over our failures. Hamilton informs me that they had to turn back when within sight of the Irish coast. Their machine caught fire." , . Captain Hinchliffe, according to this extraordinary story, lias promised to communicate with his widow again within the next few weeks, and has stated that lie will try to draw an exact chart of the route *he followed on his dramatic attempt to conquer the Atlantic from east to west. " I hope in the future, he added, "to be of some capable servic* in the advancement of the science of aviation, particularly in connection with Atlantic flying."