ANTARCTIC TRAGEDY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17147, 2 January 1930, Page 7

ANTARCTIC TRAGEDY

PLANE DISAPPEARS PART OF WHALING FLEET TWO PERSONS ABOARD. (Copyright 192!) by tho Now York Times Co., and the St. Louis f’ost-Dispateh. All rights for publication reserved throughout the world.) (By Wireless lo the Now York Times.) (Byjtussell Owen.) BAY OF WHALES. Do.-. 30. Another tragedy has been written uii the ice-strewn sea of the Antarctic. An aeroplane used in scouting for whales by tho whaler Kosmos vanished near the edgo of the icepack, despite search for it since Christmas Day. It was flown by Lief Lier, tho well-known pilot from Norway, who had with him as a passenger, I)r. Ingvald Schreiner, (lie ship’s doctor, and son of a well-known physician in Oslo. Search for the missing men is being continued hv the Kosmos. .Five days of desperate work, in which tho entire icepack was penetrated deeply between Scott Island and Balleny Islands has taken place. There is little hope that they will be found. What happened to them must have come so suddenly that Lier had no opportunity to make a safe landing on the ice or in the shelter of the Bay. Tho loss of the two young men, both of whom were popular on the ship and at home, spoiled tho Christmas season for the whalers, and thev are saddened by the accident which they could not avert, and which they have tried so hard to overcome by rescue operations. The Kosmos, which is. commanded by Captain. Larsen, is the largest of the Norwegian whalers. Sho is a 22.000 ton ship, built specially for this work. She is really a floating factory for rendering blubber from the whales brought alonside bv the small chasers. It had been thought, in recent years, that an aeroplane would be of value in spotting whales, and Byrd’s expedition coining through last year, did much to hasten the experiment. The lost plane was a light two-seater aeroplane Gypsy Moth, with a 100 h.p. Cyrrus engine, and it was fitted with pontoons. A CAPABLE PILOT. Lier was engaged as pilot. Balchen knew him well and so did Carl Petersen, one of our radio operators, and I met him in Oslo on the way to Spit/.bergen with Amundsen and Ellsworth in 1926. He was a tall, handsome man of 32, who, until this trip, had been doing commercial flying in Norway, using Ins own planes. He learned to tty in .Hungary in ,1921 and, after seven hours’ solo flying, bought a plane and flew it homo over Germany and Sweden —quite a feat for a new pilot. Lier had made a number of good flights in his smali plane and its use had been completely successful in whaling. One day he flew in all 705 miles, lie was always careful, knowing the danger of getting out of touch with tho ships and, in addition to using radio when ho flew alone, he kept along the edge of tlie pack with the mother ship or some of the chasers in sight. But, on this occasion, lie did not carry a radio because of the added weight of his passenger. The day Lier disappeared he started at 6 o’clock in the evening, when the summer sun was high in tho clear sky. Whaling operations had been resumed after the Christmas festivities. The whalers are on the other side of the date line from us, so that our Christmas Day was December 26 for them. He started and had with him fuel for live or six hours. Jlis orders were to inspect tho ice pack edge.to the west of the Kofernos. Tho three big whalers north of the pack were strung out west of Scott Island. The Larsen, which helped Commander Byrd so much last year, and the Southern Princess were near Scott Island , and the Kosmos was more to the west. The piano carried emergency rations for two days, as the possibility of a forced landing was always present* hut it did not seem dangerous, in view of Tier's method of flying within sight of the ships.

Captain Andrescn had taken every possible safety precaution. After six hours had passed and Lier had not returned, anxiety began to be felt. The chasers of the Kosmos were ordered out to look for the plane, and as the time went on the chasers from the other two ships also joined in Hie search, so that there were 16 of these fast little vessels tearing along at 14 knots across the edgo"of the pack. Then the two whalers to the east came up to aid their chasers, and hunted the entire territory between Scott’s Island and tho Kosmos. Later, the small fleet struck off to the westward. In tho five days that have elapsed, they have searched 220 miles to the westward of the Kosmos. Some of them penetrated the pack at intervals as much as 160 miles from the edge. When they returned they came hack in parallel line, far apart, sweeping the entire sea area for a. long distance from the edge, of the pack. SEARCH CONTINUING.

It is unbelievable that Lier made a mistake in iiis course, as the sun was visible at the time, and he could have followed the edge of the pack. Pilots here are more inclined to believe that, duo to engine failure in the climb, he fell off in a wing spin, crashing into the pack or the sea. The sea was fairly smooth at first, but, after the second day, it rose and became foggy. The weather cleared again in a short time. After tho first hunt, there was a conference of the captains on the Kosmos, and there seemed very little hope, from t lie way the search had been carried out, that the plane could bo found. Tho Kosmos chasers are still searching, however, penetrating the pack, which now seems to be breaking up. Commander Byrd was much concerned when lie heard of tho mishap and sent word to Captain Andresen that he wished it were in his power to do something to help. From tho extent of the search which has already been made, if is certain that the plane could not have drifted beyond the distance reached by the whalers. He also offered to send down the City of New York to search if it would have been .of any assistance, it would have been impossible to fly from here to aid the search, for there are no pontoons for the planes and the distance to the northern edge of the ice pack is more than 800 miles further than to the Pole itself. Even if the plane could get that far, it would bo impossible for it to land and refuel and it would have to turn round immediately and fly back. Tho possibility of such help was immediately dismissed by the whalers as too hazardous and Captain Andresen wired Commander Byrd to-day: “The risk to a ’plane, even flying up here from your base, would be a great one in view of tho uncertain weather experienced outside the pack, there being many days of fog at tiiis time of the year. I thank you for your generous offer of help in our time of trouble and know that you are with us.”