AIR LINER MYSTERY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 12, 15 January 1932, Page 10

AIR LINER MYSTERY

FATE OF SOUTHERN CIrOUD SEARCH IN THE MOUNTAINS MELBOURNE. Dec. 31. Refusing to believe that the Southern Cloud air-liner passed over Melbourne and was lost in tho sea on her fateiui trip from Sydney on ISaturuay, March. 21 last, residents of Whittlesea, 2i miles from Melbourne, are organising another ground search. xn a severe storm the {Southern Cloud went mysteriously to her doom wu.ll her pilot, assistant pilot and five passengers. The residents of Whittlesea have consistently adhered to tbe belief that the ’plane crashed in the rugged inoun- 1 tains north of Whittlesea. The acting Controller of Civil Aviation, Captain E. C. Johnston, said today that good might result from renewed searches by ground parties in those remote mountain parts. All the early reports indicated that the {Southern Cloud came down in those mountains, which are almost inaccessible most of the year, but which might, be combed at present by ground parties. The area was searched and researched from the air, but all airmen admit that it would still be possible for the machine to have fallen beneath the foliage in a ravine, so that it could not be seen from above. After an exhaustive inquiry the Air Accidents Investigation Committee was not able to establish what happened to the Southern Cloud after the departure from the Mascot Aerodrome, Sydney. “Fending the finding of the aircraft the committee cannot assign any cause for the loss,” the report added. “It is of the opinion that the extremely bad weather contributed to the loss. All possible efforts were made to locate the missing aircraft.’ No new evidence has prompted the renewed search from Whittlesea. The reasons for the local belief are:—(l) All the original evidence pointed to a crash in the mountains. (2) Until there has been a thorough ground search it cannot be proved that the Southern Cloud is not there. (3) Much ground remains to be searched. (4) There are serious doubts about the lost-at-sea theory. Mo wreckage has turned up. The witnesses who saw a machine over Malvern were not able to identify it by the lettering.