Lost Plane Kookaburra

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 640, 17 April 1929, Page 1

Lost Plane Kookaburra

BIG ACTION AGAINST PAPER Comment on Smitii-Ulm Flight ( United I*.A —/>;/ Tdern \ >h — Copyriyh: Received 11 a.m. SYDNEY. To-day. S J' , IIERE is still no sign of the lost Kookaburra plane, with * Lieutenant Keith Anderson and Mr. Hitchcock, who left Richmond on Sunday week to search for the Southern Cross.

A libel claim of £20,000 has arisen from a Sydney newspaper’s Article allegedly reflecting on the tiight and forced landing of the Southern Cross.

The writs, which have been issued on behalf of Squadron-Leader C. E. Kingsford Smith and Flight-Lieuten-ant C. T. P. Ulm, claim £20.000. The defendants are Smith’s Newspapers, Ltd. The claim lias to do with the publication in the Sydney “Daily Guardian” on Monday of statements and comments about the flight. The airplane Canberra left Derby yesterday to search for Lieutenant Anderson’s plane Kookaburra, but having got as far as Hall’s Creek, it returned to Wyndham to have the radio generator repaired. Captain Holden stated that 'all the fires seen on the 500 miles covered had been investigated and none revealed any trace of Anderson and Hitchcock. Two R.A.A.F. planes have arrived at Alice Springs, and will search from there. Captain Matheson's Goulburn Moth is being* repaired at Duchess. He hopes to join the search on Monday. The missing airmen left Richmond on Sunday week for Western Australia in the Kookaburra to aid in the search then in progress for the Southern Cross. They are known to have reached Woodford, 100 miles northwest of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, on Wednesday last. They have not been seen since. Notwithstanding the search now being carried out, no tidings whatever of Anderson and his companion have been received in Sydney.