GILES’S STORY CHALLENGED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 210, 24 November 1927, Page 1

GILES’S STORY CHALLENGED

A FLIGHT THAT FAILED

Weather Bureau and Ships Report First-Class Conditions

“VIOLENT STORM SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE ”

By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. THERE is a strange difference between the weather reports of Captain F. A. Giles and the United States Weather Bureau. Giles, who set out on Tuesday morning from San Francisco on a flight to New Zealand, returned to California with a graphic story of a terrific storm which he encountered, and which drove him back. Officials of the Weather Bureau say there was no such storm, and point out that vessels at sea along Giles’s route reported calm seas and light winds.

Reed. 10.30 a.m. SAN FRANCISCO, Wed. F. A. Giles started on his O attempt to fly to New Zealand via Honolulu and Australia at 7.24 a.m. to-day, but- ho met with a storm when he was 500 miles out. and was forced to return to shore. He had a terrifying experience, as he encountered a great storm, and his biplane got into a spin in an air

pocket, and turned over. He managed to right it, and made for the Californian coast. He landed safely at San Simeon, on i the coast south of San Francisco, near j a ranch belonging to the New York ; newspaper proprietor. Mr. William ! Randolph Hearst. “The violent weather conditions reported by Captain Giles are simply impossible, and it is unreasonable to think that they cov'd 've existed,*’ declare officials or the United States Weather Bureau. j They added that the ships scattei ed

along the route reported calm seas and light winds. AIRMAN’S STORY Giles’s full story, told over the telephone to the “San Francisco Examiner,” was as follows: “I had flown about 500 miles toward Honolulu, when my machine became utterly beyond my control. The wires snapped like hay. It went spinning into a rain-drenched air pocket, and

•finally it turned upside down, scattering my charts, food and instruments 1 into the ocean.” When he was speaking over the telephone Giles was breathless and seemed to be trembling. LUCK WAG WITH HIM j It : co -luded that the airman must ;. :i ,j have given a magnificent exhibition of airmanship, as lie turned the ! damaged plane right side up. and, making a wild guess r to direction, sent her back to the ainiand. and made a sale landing one mile south .of the ranch.

Giles said he never expected to make the land. His centre section and the bracing wires had snapped. He had dumped his main petrol tanks to lighten the strain on the broken plane, and the chances were just about zero. But luck, he said, stayed with him. He struck the coast 60 miles north of where he later landed, and he had to keep the plane in the air all that distance before he finally found a landing place. Continuing his story later, he said: “The weather was fine until I was about 300 miles out, when it started to get bad. It was cloudy, with rain squalls, and I began to feel those air pockets. Those they have out there over the Pacific are the same things that must have caused the airmen who were missing on the recent Dole prize flight to Hawaii to lose their way. “FOUL WEATHER” “I thought I could get through, but | my luck was out, or perhaps it was in. I ran into utterly foul weather 480 miles out. The clouds were very thick and low, and there were incessant rain squalls. There was not much wind, but the air pockets were awful. “There is one more thing. I think my experiences solve definitely the mystery of what happened to the lost Dole race fliers. “I had a biplane, and it was only l by the sheerest luck that I survived . what I went through. A monoplane is j much less stable than a biplane, and r a monoplane w’ould not have had a 1 chance in the weatherthat turned me

lover. You can see what, must have happened to them.” Captain Giles is expected to return here to-day by automobile. He notified his backers by telephone that the plane was not safe for flying, and he would have to make repairs before he can bring it there for another takej off for Honolulu. Captain Peterson refused to comment on the possibility of another attempted flight until Captain Giles’s arrival. He said that it depended entirely on the extent of the damage to the plane. i Giles told the attendants at the

Hearst Ranch that he would go to San 1 Francisco to procure the necessary materials to repair the plane, and then fly it to San Francisco to make another attempt as soon as the weather permitted.—A. and N.Z. WEATHER FORECASTS BUREAU CHIEF PEEVED Received 11.32 a.m. SAN FRANCISCO, Wed Answering an alleged statement by Captain Giles that a wrong weather forecast was given him. Major E. H. Bowie, the chief forecaster, replied: "We have made no forecast for Giles since last Saturday, at which time we told Captain Paterson, the flight manager, that we must decline to give Ihe expedition further forecasts, because neither he nor Giles seemed inclined to play the game with us. “Last Saturday Giles hopped oft against our advice.” —A. and N.Z.Sun.