FLIGHT ACROSS POLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 217, 13 August 1937, Page 8

FLIGHT ACROSS POLE.

SOVIET FLIER TAKES OFF

MOSCOW TO ALASKA

Received August 13, 10.30 a.m MOSCOW, Aug. 12. M Sigismund Levanevsky, the Soviet air ace, took off at; 6>.15 P-m. local time on a non-stop flight across the North Pole to Fairbanks, Alaska, from where lie will continue to Edmonton, Chicago and New York.- . The machine is tour-engined and the crew total seven.

M. Levanesky, who recently made the first non-stop flight from Moscow to America is one of the most skilled of Kus sian’ pilots and has been awarded several decorations for feats of aviation In 193 b with two companions, MM. Baidukoff and Levchenko, he set out from Moscow m a ono-engined aeroplane for San Francteco via the North Pole, Alaska, and Vancouver. Owing to a fault in the lubrication system when over a'point south of the Boi’in" Sea. the fliers were comcpllcd to turn hack and a landing was made at Leningrad. Later in the same month, although repairs had been effected, the flight was postponed, as the polar weather conditions were then considered to be unfavourable. M. Levanevsky also took a leadin,, part, in the search for and the rescue of Mr James Mattern, an .American airman who was forced down in Noil iEastcrn Siberia in 1933 while on a solo flight, round the world, and in the rescue of the 1-rew of the Soviet ice-breaker Chclvuskin, which was caught in the ice in -the liering Sea in 1934.