SOUTHERN CROSS DRAMA

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 56, 9 April 1929, Page 7

SOUTHERN CROSS DRAMA

(Special To Telegraph).

HOPELESSLY LOST FOR TEN HOURS.

LAST MESSAGES FMOM PLANE

THICK RAIN PROVES AVIATORS' DOWNFALL.

THRILLING STORY OF FLIGHT

AUCKLAND, This day. A vivid pieture of the Southern Cross tiying blindlv over unknown country, with vision sometimes obscured by rain, and petrol giving out and the oecupants getting very tired, is conjured up by niessages from the nionoplane which the Wyndham station piekcd up on Easter Sunday, the day foliowing the departure of the airmen from Richmond. The niessages, which were telegraphed from Wyndham to Si'dney tlie same afternoon, tell a brief but thriiling storj*. Tliey were not cabled to New Zealand but tliey are available from the Sydney papers which reached liere yesterday. The niessages, with tbeir times, are as follows : — 0.34 a.111. — We are looking for Wyndham. Notliing to report. 0.55 a.in. — Aerial earried away after we starled. Might liear you. Have been lcst in rainstorm for eiglit hours and doubt if we will be able to get there on the petrol. We are somcwhere near but don't knoiv wliere owing to the thick weather. We will ondeavour to scnd till we make a forccd landing, if necessarv. 10 a.m. — We can't see wliere we are yet, but it is somewhere 011 the coast, at the mouth of the river, and we are steerino- scutliwest. TVe tried to avoid clouds but tliev are all about. 10.45 a.m. — We are heading north-west. It is now raining and we can't see much. 11.15 a.111. — We are going south-west but can't see anv signs of hahitation anywhere. 11.20 a.m. — We have about one and a-half hours' gas and are going to keop on soutli-west and land on the beach if we can. 11.35 a.m. — It is raining now. Can not see much. 11.50 a.m. — Passed over a mission or somcthing like that and threw down a note. A cliap cave us the directicn'and I think it is 150 miles to Wyndham. We find it is due east from wliere we are now. 11.25 a.m. — All hands are pretty tired now, having been in the air for over 24 liours. 12.15 p.m.— We have turned round. We do not think we can make it. 1.4 p.m— Going south-west, but no sign of hahitation anywhere . 1.4o p.m. — Getting tired now. Have been in the air for over 27 hours. 2.14 p.m. (to Sun, Sydney). — We have been hopelesslv lost in dense rain for ten hours. We are now going to make a forced landing at a place (message faded), to he 150 knots from Wyndham, in ro t ten country (mossago faded) thongh we will communicate again as soon as possible. Cheerio. — Ulm.