SOUTHERN CROSS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 April 1929, Page 5

SOUTHERN CROSS

ANDERSON MISSING

(Australian Press Association) SYDNEY. April 11. Keith Anderson, who left Alice Springs yesterday morning for a seven hundred mile hop to Wyndham, has not reported since he left. There is a landing ground with petrol supplies, at Wave Hill, which is five hundred miles from Alice Yprings, hut inquiries show that Anderson has not been seen there. The latest Wyndham report is that nothing has been seen or heard of Keitli Anderson. I INVERCARGILL, April 11. In the wireless message picked up here, it was announced that the country in which Keith Anderson is believed to have been lost is even more desolate than the Kimberley district.

A NEW THEORY

MELBOURNE, April 11

By a careful checking, the last radio messages received from the Southern Cross h.v the newspaper “Sun” suggest to the aviation authorities the theory that Kingsford Smith, after flying over the Port George Mission Station, and correcting his position, followed the course of the Prince Regent River, and came down somewhere in that vicinity.

LATEST RADIO ADVICE

INVERCARGILL, April 11

A wireless message picked up in Invercargill this evening, from Sydney stated that the Intelligence Officer 'for the northern district of Western Australia has expressed the opinioh that no undue harm should be felt for the safety of the missing airmen, until at least three weeks have passed.

He said that if the airmen were walking towards civilisation, their rate of progress would be so slow that it may take weeks to get clear of the rough country. In his opinion, there would be little prospect of sighting the lost plane from the air unless the missing men had means of signalling. A ground search was more likely to yield results.

Another reported that, already many parties of friendly blacks were willing to commence a search, and with this end in view, bases were being established. Until the arrival of more petrol tlie whole position was being reviewed, nnd. on the arrival of. the Resident Magistrate from Broome, tat Derby, a systeinised search will be commenced by land and air.

350 MEN TO SEARCH

SYDNEY, April 11

The sen plant* carrier “Albatross” sails immediately for the North "West Coast, carrying six planes and three hundred and fifty men to scour the country for the missing airmen. She is going full speed. The “Albatross” is expected to reach the scene of action in one week.

R.A.F. seaplanes, now at Singapore, may also assist.

NO NEWS

(Received this day at 8 a.m.) SYDNEY, April 12

The search of Avon Valley and Howe Hirer area by planes to-day disclosed no signs of the missing Southern Cross or crew.

Holden spent the day overhauling the Canberra at Wyndham ready to take up the search in the morning. The “Herald’s” correspondent at Wyndham reports to-night that inrjuiries at the mission throw no further light bn the airmen’s fate. Anderson is still unreported.

SUGGESTIONS OF FAKED

REPORTS

’PLANE’S WIRELESS FAILED

From information given in Sydney newspapers last week, it is apparently well established that the plane’s radio equipment functioned badly. Ulm, in his last message, stated that the aerial (of standard copper, weighted at the loose end) carried away six rtly alter the take-off. The aerial drum carried a considerably greater | length of wire than would be let out i normally. Inn probably when the j ‘ fish” (the weight) had gone the slack ; aerial would be liable to become entangled and much less efficient. Ap- j parently the signals were so weak j that they could not be heard further l distant than Wyndham. and there is no suggestion in the last message from the ’plane that M’Williams had picked u.n any message intended For the ’plane. Hut for this inability to receive messages, all might have been well, for the officials at Wyndham were astonished when they were? advised that the Southern Cross had left on Saturday morning, and was flying into atrocious weather, and urg- j ed that the machine should be immediately recalled. Had recall messages been received oven late on the | first Saturday afternoon or in the evening, the tanks would have eon- | tained ample petrol to take the Southern Cross back to Richmond. Throughout their latter flying career, both Smith and Ulm. about all things, heeded weather reports, and during; their long wait at Blenheim remark- | ed many times that they were fully i aware that some people accused them of faintheartedness in not getting away on the* return journey. “No amount of public opinion—not all the public, hut some of them—will move

us to start before the weather is right,” said Kingsford-Smith one clay towards the end of the wait at Blenheim. “We are not out to break our necks, nnd we are certainly not out to discount what we have been able to prove.” So insistent were tbev upon that point that there is no ground for supposing that, after further bitter weather experience, they should change their policy of weather safety first. It is most unlikely

that the recall message urged from Wyndham ever reached thorn.

WHAT WAS THE WEATHER MESSAGE?

Captain Smith’s brother, Mr L. Kingsford-Smith, is definite upon the point that a weather report was handed to Smith and Ulm on Saturday morning just prior to the take-off. He considers that this was a faked message which misled the flyers into the decision to start. “I read portion of the message which was received at Richmond.” he said, “hut I did not see the signature. My brother put the telegram in his pocket. He started off thinking that the weather was good.” Kingsford-Smith had, it is established, been fully warned by messages from Wyndham that heavy rain earlier in the week bad made the landings there unsuitable, and would thus ho more than usually careful in his study of weather reports. There is no record in Sydney of any telegram received on Saturday morning from Wyndham for Captain Smith stating that conditions wore favourable. There is, however, the usual record of the receipt of the warning from Wyndham later in the day that the machine must lie recalled.

THE REPORTED LANDING

The fact that the machine was reported to have made a safe landing at the Drysdale Mission Station, well to the north-west- of Wyndham, and near the coast, which statement has since been proved false, need not astonish, after the tragic experience of the Mon-crielT-Hood attempt to fly the Tasman, such rumours become fact, for the time being, though, in the face of later knowledge, it is obvious that no such news could liavu reached Sydney from the isolated mission station, to which no telegraph or telephone line loads, iji such rapid time. It has since been established that the Southern Cross did fly over that mission station, then apparently turned to the west and south along the coast, and reached as far south as the Port George Mission Station, still on the coast. So rugged and broken is this tract of country—the much indented coast line indicates clearly the rough nature of the land—that a beach landing would appear the most feasible. if there were beaches.