NORTH POLE FLIGHT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19332, 24 May 1937, Page 5

NORTH POLE FLIGHT

RUSSIAN EXPEDITION

RESEARCH PARTY LANDED

YEAR'S STAY INTENDED

(Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. May 24, 11.30 a.m.) * LONDON. May 23. The Soviet air expedition to the Pole, headed by Dr. Otto Schmidt, flew over the North Polo at 11.10 a.m. on Saturday, and landed at 11.35 a.m. on an icefloe 12| miles from the Pole, west of the Rudolf Island meridian. The expedition intends to remain there a year, for scientific research, while the floe drifts. Its object is to study the possibility of establishing a permanent polar landing base for the projected Moscow-San Francisco air route. The four scientists who will remain at the Pole will be provisioned for a year and a half by plane. They will reside, in a collapsible insulated hut. They hope to establish a permanent meteorological station.

Caviare, sausages, ptowdered eggs, milk and chicken, in addition to brandy and tea, will sustain the sceutists. They will have a solitary dog to warn them of the approach of bears. Dr. Schmidt reports that the ice-floe makes an admirable aerodrome. He has implanted at the North Pole a flag bearing the Hammer and Sickle of Soviet Russia and M. Stalin's photograph.

A message from Moscow states that as an audience to-day was standing up to acclaim the premiere performance of a play,, "The Dream," dramatising the hero's plans for an Arctic flight and its ultimate realisation, the author, M. Michael Vodlianov, was himself approaching the North Pole, piloting the scientists who on Saturday landed there.

Dr. Schmidt's first report says that the weather was comparatively warm, the temperature being 12 degrees below zero. Conditions were sunny, with a slight wind. Everyone was feeling splendid. They slept well after 24 hours of continuous work erecting five tents and installing scientific, instruments.

ZEPPELIN DISASTER

STATIC ELECTRICITY

DR. ECKENER'S THEORY

LAKEHURST, May 22. Dr. Hugo Eckener, designer of the Zeppelin Hindonburg, which exploded and crashed at Lakehurst, United States, with the loss of over 30 lives, and head of the German Air Ministry board of inquiry into the disaster, gave evidence at the American Bureau of Air Commerce inquiry. He said he believed that hydrogen leaking from a gas cell was ignited by static "electricity, thus causing! the disaster. He said he believed that the sharp turn taken by the airship during the landing manoeuvres broke the she'ar wire at the stem and the loose end of tlie wire punctured the gas cell. He discounted the suggestion of sabotage and found flaws in other theories.

MISSING PARTY FOUND

CENTRAL AUSTRALIA PROVISIONS DROPPED SYDNEY, May 23. The members of the Northern Australia aerial geophysical survey party, including Sir Herbert Gopp and Mr. P. B. Nye, who were forced down in a plane in Central Australia on Friday, were found by air force machines at 2 p.m. to-day.

All are safe and provisions were dropped to them.

PLANE MOTOR AFIRE MRS. PUTNAM'S MACHINE SEQUEL TO TEST TRIP TUSCAN (Arizona), May 22. One motor of the rebuilt plane, in which the American .airwoman, Mrs. Amelia Earhart Putnam, crashed at Honolulu when starting the second hop of her round-the-world flight, caught fire and was slightly damaged the moment after landing following a test flight.'

Quick repairs were executed to permit her to return to Los Angeles during the day. She said that she plans to restart her round-the-world flight as soon as possible.

FLYING BOAT DAMAGED

COLLISION WITH YACHT

TRANSFER OF PASSENGERS

LONDON, May 22.

En route to Egypt from Southampton, tho Imperial Airways Hying boat Castor was damaged in a collision with a yacht. The passengers and mail. were transferred to the flying boat Cygnus. The occasion was the thousandth passenger and mail flight by Imperial Airways on the routes since the first trip to Karachi in 1929, comprising 4. r >o trips to Africa and 550 to Anica, India and Australia.

PARIS TO TOKIO

FRENCH SEEKING RECORD

ATHENS, May 22.

The French airmen, Doret and Micheletti, who are making an attempt, on the Paris-Tokio record, arrived at Athens. After refuelling they departed.