FEARS FOR SAFETY OF AIRMEN FELT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18546, 21 August 1928, Page 1

FEARS FOR SAFETY OF AIRMEN FELT.

MAY HAVE LANDED IN LONELY LABRADOR.

fUnited Frees Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.)

(Received August 21, 11.30 a.m.) OTTAWA. August 20.

The Canadian Government wireless stations are exercising constant vigilasce for news of the missing Rockford 'plane. Continual long and short wave messages are being sent out from Belle Isle Strait, Port Burwell and Wakeham Bay stations. If the flyers have crashed in Canadian territory they will have considerable difficulty in finding their way out. as the country over which the}’ flew was barren and practically uninhabited.— Australian Press Association.

Three Americans, Parker, Hassell and Cramer, are attempting a threestage flight to Stockholm across the Atlantic. Their first stage, from United States to Canada, was successful, and they hopped off on August 18 on the second stage from Cochrane, Ontario, to Mount Evans. Greenland. A message yesterday said: "The aeroplane is equipped with a wireless, set. which will be the airmen’s only means of communication with civilisation on the. flight over the barren territory in which they expect to land early on Sunday. Wireless communication, however, can only be established by chance, as their wave length is unknown and no arrangements were made with the Federal authorities before hopping off. The Federal station in the far north of Canada is watching for their signals. A wireless message received at Madison, Wisconsin, at 6.4 p.m. said that the aeroplane was approaching the coast of Labrador.

NO WORD RECEIVED SINCE ’PLANE LEFT ON OCEAN JUMP.

(Received August 21, 11.30 a.m.) VANCOUVER, August 20.

The gasoline supply for Hassell's machine must have been exhausted many hours ago. Leaving Cochrane on Saturday the radio was heard regularly, while the machine was crossing northern Quebec, and then when traversing Labrador and the fringes of Ungava, but no word has been since they left the Continental coast line for the jump across the iceberg-infected seas between the mainland and the Greenland coast.

Wbat has happened to them is a matter for conjecture.—United Service.