PLANE MISSING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27276, 30 December 1949, Page 4

PLANE MISSING

VICINITY OF HAWERA FATHER AND SON ON BOARD BAD WEATHER ENCOUNTERED Special to the Daily Times WELLINGTON, Dec. 29. A Tiger Moth aircraft with two on board went missing this afternoon in bad weather on a flight from Wanganui to New Plymouth. The occupants were a father and son. The plane was last seen over Hawera at 2.30 p.m., when it was heading seawards in heavy rain. The pilot was lan Palmer, aged 20, a cadet airman at Wigram, who was on Christmas leave, and the passenger was his father, Mr Oswald Palmer, a widower, of 80 Victoria street, Onehunga. They were on a holiday pleasure flight from Auckland. They hired a plane from the Auckland Aero Club and flew to Wanganui, where they arrived on Wednesday by way of Rotorua. They were visiting their only known relative in New Zealand, Mr Charles Palmer, a brother of Mr Oswald Palmer. They had met for the first time in Several years. Father and son left this afternoon to return to Mangere, Auckland, via New Plymouth. , Two Harvard aircraft from Ohakea searched between Wanganui and New Plymouth and along the coastline until dark tonight, but found no trace of the. plane or its occupants. The search was seriously hampered by poor visibility, with rain and low thick cloud. An intensive search of the area in which the plane may have crashed or crash-landed will start al dawn tomorrow, weather permitting. No definite identification of the plane’s letters, ZKAHZ, were made in the sighting at Hawera, but the missing plane was the only aircraft in the area at that time. The pilot had two possible routes, one in a direct line from Wanganui to New Plymouth over rugged hilly country, and the other by way of Hawera on a rightangled course to New Plymouth. This course would have brought the plane within a few miles of Mount Egmont, which was clouded. Four aircraft will leave Ohakea at dawn tomorrow on a search. They will comb the coast and sea over a 15-mile belt between Wanganui and Hawera. One plane will search the coastline right round Cape Egmont to New Plymouth.