RASH FLIGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23093, 19 July 1938, Page 9

RASH FLIGHT

OLD AEROPLANE AMERICANJVIYSTERY PILOT'S ADVENTURE NEW YORK TAKE-OFF NO REPORT SINCE By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received July 18, 10.H0 p.m.) NEW YOKK, Jul.v 18 Residents of New York had an aviation mystery about which to speculate as Douglas Corrigan, aged 31, a transport pilot, flying a nine-year-old single-motored Curtiss Roban aeroplane not equipped either with radio or safety devices, sped off alone yesterday either nonstop to Los Angeles or equally nonstop of necessity to England.

It was an unlicensed attempt to emulate Colonel Charles Lindbergh, whose aeroplane, Spirit of St. Louis, Corrigan helped to assemble for the historic flight of 1927. Corrigan arrived in New York on July 10 unheralded. Owing to the excitement attending the hopping-off of Mr. Howard Hughes on his-world flight it was not until next day that Corrigan calmly announced that he had flown non-stop from Los Angeles in 27 hours 50 minutes on a holiday jaunt. This caused aviators to gasp, since such a flight is regarded as an achievement in a modern aeroplane but little short of a miracle in that of Corrigan, which is so overladen with petrol tanks that he cannot see out oi the cockpit toward the front, and must flip the aeroplane sideways in order to make observations from the cabin windows.

A greater gasp went up at 5.17 a.m. yesterday when Corrigan loaded 320 gallons of petrol into the tanks, estimated to be a 40-hour supply, took off, and vanished due east instead of west. It was then learned that Corrigan had unsuccessfully applied for a permit to fly to Ireland last year, and had long cherished the ambition to fly across the Atlantic. His friends insisted that he had no such intention when he took off yesterday, and contended that lie was merely going back to Los Angeles. They pointed out that it is not uncommon for westward fliers to take off eastward from New York and to circle afterward. When yesterday passed without a further report as to the whereabouts of Corrigan, however, the transatlantic theory gained many converts, and the mystery became a minor newspaper sensation. Tho flier was still not reported at 3 a.m. to-day.