FURTHER DETAILS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 July 1930, Page 5

FURTHER DETAILS

OF SPIRITUALIST’S STATEMENT.

(By Telegraph--Per Press Association.)

. WELLINGTON, July 16. Private cable advice gives exact information of the alleged location by /the spiritualist of the Hood-Moncrieff plane. l : ''lt -states;, .the crash occurred in a gully .205 yards from,; the coast, . 22$ miles south from Capo Graham, and four to six miles south-south of Ward, and gives the latitude as 42deg. osec. south, longitude 174 deg. ssee. east. A point.fgurvto pix miles, from Ward is a long way from this and no such place as Cape Graham is on the map or known to navigators. Both locations are on, or very close to the main i road, and four miles south of Ward is the township of Mirza, on the railway. The latitude and longitude given are very near, ; if riot' at the township of Kekerarigu and the neighbourhood is a long settled farming country, and the scene _iof the present activity of the Public \Vorkis Department, in building the main railway connection to. Parnassus in Canterbury./ ; The area- is reported to have been thoroughlysearched at'the time of; the fatal flight, although the possibility of th*a aviators having reached the East Grant of the South Island was remote. It is recalled that the in the vicinity of Wellington at the time of the flight was cloudless.

RESIDENTS’ COMMENT,

BLENHEIM, July 16,

Inquiries /among settlers; south of Ward, indicate that nothing has ever been seen to substantiate the story of the Marrickville spiritualist. ■ The locality,, four miles south of Ward corresponds with the property of either M. S. Andrew or A. R. Wooding. Andrews says his place is fairly Open with numerous gullies, some of which are very steep, but not obscured by bush. He has mustered ail over the property repeatedly, and is of the opinion that if a plan© had been wrecked there he would have found some trace. V

Wooding, however, is not so certain. His country includes numerous scrub obscured gullies, into some ~of which he has never-, penetrated and he’ says that there would be plenty of places where a dozen planes might have crashed .without his knowledge. ‘Til go and have a look when I get time,” lie concluded. , •

LIEUT. BUCKLEY’S ASSERTION.. 'CHRISTCHURCH, July 16.., “There is nothing in. that story,”, said Flight Lieut. M.,W. Buckley, of Wigram Aerodrome, who conducted an aerial search along. the coast and over the . spot, mentioned on the morning following the day, of the flight. “The place, is right on the air route between here and Blenheim, and is flown over every day or so. More than two hundred planes must have, passed over there since the Tasman flight was attempted, and it is practically impossible that the wrecked plane coufd have been missed.”