STILL SEARCHING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 435, 20 January 1933, Page 5

STILL SEARCHING

(Press. Assn.

diminishing hope EXPERTS FEAR A CRASK INTO MOUNTAIN SIDE ODDS AGAINST RESCTTE

. — By Telegraph — Copyriglit).

London, January 18. A Lausanne message states that Captain Hope, accompanied by M. Kammacher, the director of airports, fiew for 21 hours over the side valleys of the Rhone. A fog cloud reduced th'e visibility, and they had to return when snow began to fall. Captain Mittelholzer, a leading Swiss airman states that the day Mr. Hinkler began his flight the weather was bad over the mountains and he would have had to ascend 15,720 feet in order to fly above the clouds. This was impossible owing to his hea,vy load of petrol. Captain Mittelholzer is of opinion that Hinkler lost his way in the fog and clouds, owing to ^ insufficient | knowledge of the geography of the j! region and may have crashed into the | mountain side. The chance was a thousand to one against a single aeroplane finding any trace of either Hinkler or his machine. The Matterhorn Valley over which Hinkler is said to have flown, is a deep gash in the mountains of the Swiss Alps having as its western base the Lac de Geneve. On the righthand side is Mount Blanc, over 16,000 feet high, and on the left the serrated range of the Bernese Oherland. Ranging from Montreux and Territet, on the lalce shore, the line of flight which was extensively used by aviators during the Great War passed up the valley of the Rhone Superieur, past Gryon and ended in Les Dents du Midi, a double peak just below the Matterhorn. Flying past these the aviator would strike side-winds from the Engadine which would be liable to drive him into the Chamoisaires mountains which lie above Villars-sur-Ollon, and are full of chasms and deep lcnife-like ridges. Heavy snow lies on these mountains from September to May.