AVIATION

Hokitika Guardian, 18 July 1933, Page 5

AVIATION

ITALIANS* FEAT

CONSIDERED WITHOUT EQUAL.

(United Press Association —By Electric

'lei? graph—Copyright.)

LONDON, July 17

The “Daily Telegraph's” aviation , correspondent says: No other air force , in tiie world could equal the Italian flight which lias just been concluded at Chicago, or could assemble such a , honogeneous force of large flying boats. I Each one, nilly loaded, weighs eleven tons, and such a fleet coukl carry an immense w«.r load c-r commercial load on a five hundred mile flight and return without refuelling. Unlike the Atlantic and other long distance flights, the Italian scf.iadron planes were not staggered at the takeoff, and wore not unable t° climb even a small bill. In the first few hours, they flew to a height of thirteen thousand feet through the Alpine Pass. A JOURNALSITIC FEAT. PHOTOS OF BALBO’S LANDING. LONDON, July 17. Claiming it hs an unprecedented journalistic feat, newspapers here today published a photograph of Balbo’s Italian air squadron landing at Montreal on Friday. The photograph was flown from New York and delivered at /Berlin, by Wiley Post (the distance flyer). Thence it was telegraphed to London. LITHUANIAN FLYERS MISSING. NEW YORK, July 16. Darius and Girenas, the two Lithuanian aviators, who hopped off Here on Saturday on a trans-Atlantic flight to Lithuania, were not reported m Sunday night, after the scheduled time for their arrival at their goal. POST IIEAVES KONIGSBERG. LONDON, July 17. A Konigsberg message says that Wiley Post left there at 615 a.m. today. POST COMPLETES FURTHER HOP (Received at 9.30 a.m.) MOSCOW, July 17. Post'arrived, and later departed for Novosibirsk.

LITHUANIANS’ FATAL CRASH. BODIES BADLY MUTILATED. (Received at 9.30 a.til.) BERLIN, July 17. The wreckage of the aeroplane .‘‘Lithuania,’* and the bodies of Darius and CJirepaH, were found ip a pine forest at Kuhdamm in Pommerauia, 880 mileg from Kovno, The police believe that the airmen mistook trie treetops for a meadow, and tried to lan'd owing to a petrol shortage. A farmer heard a crash early this morning. The weather was bad throughout the night. A notebook contained the words: — “Flying, Chicago, New York Kovno.” People at Kovno were unaware that the “Lithuania”’ had crashed, and a large crowd, including the Prime Minister, awaited her arrival at the aerodrome all night. It was at first reported that a third body, believed to be that of a stowaway, had been found under the wreckage, ■ but the police were later satisfied that there were only two men in the “Lithuania.” This error arose owing to the bodies being so mutilated.