IN THE AIR.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 December 1919, Page 2

IN THE AIR.

AUSTRALIAN cfc N.Z. CABLE ASSOeiAVJOJv] LOST HIS WAY. (Received This Dav at 8.45 a.m.) LONDON, December 16. There seems little doubt now that Howell lost his way. The pilot probably seesawed backwards and forwards across the course, hour after hour, hoping to pick up a landmark. Darkness was meanwhile rapidly coming on, and the petrol tanks steadily emptying. It is likely {be tanks wquld ijot be filled aj, Taranto, ia view of the short flight contemplated. The strain cn the airmen must have bees tremendous but the likelier cause of the machine falling into the sea within 150 miles in direct line of the starting point, was the exhaustion of the petrol rather than the fatigue of the pilot. Furtherlight would be thrown on this when the machine which will he salved, is examined.

KANGAROO’S BREAK. (Received This Rav. at 9. 25 a.rn ) LONDON, December 17.

The reports of the Kangaroo aeroplane accident cabled on the 13th were incorrect. The machine is intact, but the port engine is completely out of action and the delay is indefinite,

HOWELL’S LAST FLY. /(Received This Day at 10.35. a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 16. The British naval attache at Rome telegraphed to the Admiralty confirming the loss of the Martinsyde airmen. He states the aeroplane fell into the sea at 8 o’clock at night. Fishermen state it seems salvable. The manager of Martinsyde’s said Howell’s last journey must have be»n cruel and heart-breaking. * Possibly the log, now in possession of the Britislj Consul at Corfu, will throw light thereon . Howell left Taranto in the highest spirits at noon for Athens, a four hundred mile journey in a machine with a cruising - spfeed of one hundred miles hourly, and should easily have made Athens before dark, but, according to the weather reports, the day was misfy.