WHALER PLANE MISSING

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 860, 2 January 1930, Page 9

WHALER PLANE MISSING

TRAGEDY FEARED IN ANTARCTIC AWAY FOR OVER A WEEK NEW YORK. Tuesday. Du 11USSBDD OWJS.V Ti™t P '- rif ' ht ' 2d ’ 1928 ' bv the ‘New York Times company and the St. Louis -Postttiwpatch. Ail rights for publication reserved throughout the world. Wireless to the -New York Times.” BAY OP WHALES, Tuesday. Another tragedy lias occurred in the ice-strewn Antarctic Sea. An airplane which was used for scouting for whales by the whaler Kosmos vanished near the edge of the ice-pack. It is still missing though search has been made for it since Christmas Day. The machine was flown by Lief Lier, a well-known Norwegian pilot, who had with him as a passenger Dr. Ingvald Schreiner, the ship's doctor, a son of a well-known physician at Oslo. The search for the missing men is being continued by the Kosmos, although after five days' desperate effort, during which the entire icepack was penetrated deeply ‘between Scott Island and the Balleny Islands, there is little hope that they will be found alive. What happened to them must have been 30 sudden that Lier could have had no opportunity to make a safe landing on the ice or in a sheltered bay. „ The loss of the two young men, both of whom were popular on the ship and at home, spoiled the Christmas season for the whalers. Lier had made a number of good flights in his small machine, and its use had been completely successful in whaling. One day he flew 700 miles. When he flew alone he kept along the edge of the ice-pack with the mother ship or some of the chasers in sight, but on this occasion he did not carry radio because of the added weight of his passenger. , CHASERS JOIN SEARCH The pilot left at six o’clock in the evening with fuel for five or six hours. His orders were to inspect the icepack edge to the west of the Kosmos. The airplane carried emergency rations for two days as the possibility of a forced landing was always present. After six hours had passed and Lier had not. returned anxiety began to be felt. The chasers of the Kosmos were ordered to look for the machine. As time went on the chasers from the other two whalers also joined in the search so that there were 16 of these fast little vessels tearing along at 14 knots across the edge of the pack. Two whalers to the east came up to their aid and the chasers then hunted over the entire territory between Scott’s Island and the Kosmos. A small fleet struck off to the westward. Altogether they searched 220 miles to the westward of the Kosmos. Some of the vessels penetrated the pack at intervals as much as 160 miles from the edge. When they returned they sailed in parallel lines far apart and swept the entire sea area for a long distance from the edge of the pack. It is feared that the airplane crashed on the ice-pack or into the sea. After the second day the sea rose and it became foggy. The weather cleared again shortly afterwards.