FORCED DOWN AT SEA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26543, 19 August 1947, Page 5

FORCED DOWN AT SEA

AMERICAN TRANSPORT PLANE HIGH OFFICIALS AMONG MISSING Rec. 7 p.m. HONOLULU, Aug. 17. An army transport plane carrying Mr George Atcheson, political adviser to General MacArthur, was forced to land at sea 70 miles from Hawaii on Saturday night. An announcement by Army Headquarters said the plane’s pilot radioed that he had run out of petrol in the flight from Kwajalien. Air and sea operations have been begun to seek the plane, which also carries highranking army officers. About 8 a.m. Honolulu time to-day search pilots radioed that they had sighted survivors in the water. Two were in Mae. West life-jackets, and another was clinging to an overturned raft. The search pilots dropped rafts and saw one man crawl into the raft and pull in the two others. Another plane reported sighting an abandoned raft nearby. The coastguard cutter Hermes picked up the three survivors from the raft, who were then transferred to a plane and are being flown to Honolulu. Two are reported to be injured. Later reports say that seven dead bodies were picked up. This leaves three unaccounted for. Mr Atcheson is one of the three missing. The three survivors have been identified as Colonel Harvey Huglin. Captain P. Ryder, and Sergeant Holland. Mr Atcheson, who is chairman of the Allied Control Council in Japan, with the rank of Ambassador, was en route to Washington to attend State Department conferences. He was believed to be going to Washington to take part in the preliminary talks on the Japanese, peace treaty. ■ Thirteen people were in the pissing aircraft, which, according to Transport Command officers in San Francisco, was General MacArthur’s personal plane, The Bataan. Bad weather apparently caused the plane to run out of petrol before reaching Honolulu, and squalls are still handicapping searchers, who are finding visibility limited.