ATLANTIC FLOWN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 849, 18 December 1929, Page 11

ATLANTIC FLOWN

CRASH ENDS LONG HOP TO BRAZIL PLANE DOWN IN FOREST United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright Reed. 9 a.m. BAHIA (Brazil), Tues. The flight of Lieutenant-Colonel Tadeo Larre Borges (Uruguay) and Captain Leon Challe (France) from Spain to South America, ended during the night in a crash in the Brazilian coastal forests, where the airplane was demolished. The skill and courage of their flight across the South Atlantic Ocean was little less thau the miracle of their escape from death in the wreck of the big plane. When it rushed to a final ending near the town of Santo Antonio, some 50 miles from the coast, Captain Challe was slightly injured; but Lieutenant-Colonel Borges was not hurt. Aviation officials were amazed that the flyers escaped so easily in the dense forest region. The airplane had covered in a direct line a distance of approximately 3,640 miles, and the news of the crash came when the entire South American coast, from Natal to Buenos Aires, was anxiously awaiting word, after 12 hours in which the plane’s radio was silent. First advice raised a fear that the flyers were seriously injured, and medical aid was hurriedly dispatched by ariplane; but later cheering crowds at Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Ayres, and Montevideo greeted the report that both flyers had escaped lightly. Lieutenant-Colonel Borges’s wife and six children heard -the news in Montevideo.