MISSING AIRMAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22632, 25 July 1935, Page 10

MISSING AIRMAN

SEARCH PARTIES' DIFFICULTIES BAD WEATHER EXPERIENCED (Feb United Puess Association) HASTINGS, July 24. The search for Hamish Armstrong both by air and by land has been abandoned in the meantime. The weather everywhere along the ranges is so bad that flying is quite impossible. Ail the parties' searching on foot, it is understood, have been withdrawn not only because of the weather, but also because since it has been made certain that the supposed traces of wreckage and smoke from fire have no bearing on the mishap, there is nothing to guide the searchers. It is thought to bo unwise •to allow parties on foot to continuo aimless tramping merely in tho hopo of making a chance discovery. According to information received from Gardner and Yeoman's mill, at the foot of tho ranges, a remote settler living towards the sTaihape side, of the ranges, in a report sent by a roundabout route through Wanganui to the emergency radio station at the Takapau base, says that he saw or heard a machine a quarter of an hour after it had been seen over tho hills above the mill. It has been impossible throughout the search to fly over that territory, but a search will be made there as soon as possible. An expert pilot belonging to the Hawke's Bay Aero Club says that, though there is slender chance of finding Armstrong, it is not impossible that he may have made a safe landing in the country to the west of the ranges. The possibility is not counted upon, but it exists. The*pilot says ther.e are places inHhat territory where a machine could make a safe forced landing.

"If only there had been a frost and a clear day following," said the pilot. "we might have been ablo to discover something. As it is, it would have been only luck to have seen the missing machine. Wo have not had a fair chance since the search began." It is estimated that the extent of the whole area over which flights have been made is 640 square miles, and of the area concentrated upon about 100,000 acres, all of which is high country, ranging up to 5000 or more feet, and heavily wooded and deeply raviiftd. Owing to tho fog and snow it has been impossible to cross the Ruahines at the particular point where it is believed that Armstrong might have crashed, but the ranges have been crossed elsewhere and skirted for 30 to 40 miles along each side.

ASSISTING IN THE SEARCH i TWO AUCKLAND AEROPLANES. (Pee United Press Association) AUCKLAND, July 24. Two Auckland Aero Club pilots-Flight-lieutenant D. M. Allan (chief instructor to the club) and Flight-lieuten-ant W. H. Lett (the club's instructor for the Waikato district)—are preparing to leave to-morow in two Moth machines to augment the search for the missing airman. They are to make a search of the Kaimanawa Range near Taupo, and to fly over the country south of Taupo from Taihapo to Hasting-