AIR MYSTERY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23861, 11 January 1941, Page 10

AIR MYSTERY

MISS JOHNSON'S DEATH CONFLICTING REPORTS 100 MILES OFF COURSE LONDON, Jan. 0 The mystery surrounding the death of the famous- woman flier Amy Johnson has been deepened by the issue of two conflicting statements by Government departments. The Admiralty to-day reiterated its assertion that when her aeroplane crashed in the Thames Estuary on Sunday she was accompanied by a nian passenger, after the Ministry of Aircraft Production had issued a statement that she had no passenger on board when she left the airfield. Earlier Version Bepeated The Admiralty dislikes being disbelieved, and insists that observers on board the naval trawler Haslemere were not mistaken about seeing a man and a woman in what it described as "an exceedingly heavy and confused sea." Unfortunately Lieutenant-Comman-der Fletcher, commander of the trawler, who made a vain attempt at rescue, was unconscious when a motor launch rescued him from the water and did not recover from exhaustion and the shock of immersion. Therefore he was unable to say whether the person whom he held up for a few minutes was a man or a woman Petrol Exhausted The Daily Express says the drama is one of the strangest in the history of flying. The facts are that Amy .Johnson was 100 miles off her course and she carried petrol for the exact period of the flight, which supports the version of the Ministry of Aircraft Production that she was alone, got lost, and flew round seeking her hearings until her petrol was exhausted. The Ministry of Aircraft Production believes that she finally "bailed out" over the Thames Estuary, and that she possibly saw the naval convoy of which the Haslemere formed part, and attempted to alight as near as possible to one of the vessels. It points out that only one parachute was observed to leave the machine bolero it hit the water. Bad Weather Expected The Ministry's statement was: "When Amy Johnson left the airfield at 10.15 a.m. on Sunday she had no passenger. The weather report given to her was bad. Her parting words were: 'All right, I am going over the top,' thus indicating that she proposed to fly over the bad weather, with the clouds under her. "Her scheduled flight should have taken an hour. Nothing was seen of the aeroplane until 3.30 p.m., when it came down over the Thames Estuary. The machine carried petrol sufficient for only four and three-quarter hours, which was the exact time between the : take-off and the crash. ; "Three hundred airfields have been j asked to report if she landed to lefuel. None has yet reported having seen her."