SUNDAY PASSENGER FLIGHTS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 February 1933, Page 9

SUNDAY PASSENGER FLIGHTS

NO SOUTHERN CROSS CASE. MISLEADING -RUMOURS IN SOUTH.

A rumour to ' the effect that Sir. Charles Kingsford Smith was to figure in a test case coming before the Supreme Court to determine the position regarding passenger flights on Sunday has recently gained currency in Stratford and Wanganui, but Mr. S. E. Nielson, secretary of the New Zealand Aero Club, yesterday denied that any such action was pending. It had been stated that the New Zealand Aero Club and the Police Department were to be the opposing parties in a case that was to determine whether the Southern Cross was flying for hire or reward on a Sunday., Three cases have already been brought by the police against aero blubs arid pilots for Sunday flying, and all have been dismissed by the stipendiary magistrates, but in any case, the New Zealand Aero Club has definite information from the Government that there was, never any intention' on the part of the police to prosecute Air-Commodore Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, nor was any such prosecution proposed. The three cases referred to were heard at Wanganui, Auckland and Napier. ’ Early last year a case was brought before Mr. J. H. Salmon, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Wanganui, when Captain Brake was prosecuted on a charge of flying on Sunday. Mr. Salmon held that the' aeroplane was a vehicle and that the intention of the Act was to exempt all form of transport. He claimed that an ' aeroplane came within the definition of a vehicle, arid consequently dismissed the case. Mr. Salmon’s contention was ’ backed up by Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., at Auckland, when Mr. Hunt dismissed a charge as being ridiculous, if it meant that a man could take a taxi or a bus and could drive over a certain road, but that he could not fly over it with an aeroplane. On that occasion the secretary of the Auckland Aero ClUb and the pilot instructor were charged with carrying on their trade on a Sunday by taking passengers for hire in a vehicle that was not a carriage. Action was also taken against Captain G. Bolt, assistant pilotinstructor to the Wellington Aero Club, for flying on a Sunday in Napier. The charge was dismissed.