FIRST IN HISTORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 January 1939, Page 5

FIRST IN HISTORY

RESCUE OF FLYING BOAT SURVIVORS CRAFT SPLIT BY IMPACT WITH WATER. HEROIC EFFORTS BY CREW. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. NEW YORK. January 22. A storm is delaying the tanker Esso Baytown, which is plunging to New York with 10 survivors of the 13 passengers aboard the Imperial Airways flying boat Cavalier, which made a forced landing in the Atlantic, midway between New York and Bermuda, yesterday. She is now expected to arrive at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

The captain of the Cavalier. Mr. Rowland Anderson, one of those picked up. is reported to have been critically hurt. Several of the tanker’s crew are also suffering from exposure and injuries. The first rescue boat to be lowered overturned. A second boat rescued the seamen and. then made the journey through heavy seas to the tiny group of half-frozen men and women who had been drifting for 10 hours. The survivors told the officers of the tanker that the engines of the flying-boat failed because of ice choking the carburettor. The landing was so rough that the occupants were hurled against the walls of the cabin, several being injured. The all-metal hull of the Cavalier was apparently split upon impact with L±.e water as the plane sank so fast mat there was barely time to get out. Working heroically, the crew released the passengers through the emergency doors. Mrs Noakes, wife of ah American business man who was drowned, said that she saw her husband, with his head gashed and bleeding, struggling to hold on to his lifebelt, which he had been unable to fasten. She tried to reach him, but he lost his grip and sank.

Throughout the afternoon the survivors floated on their lifebelts, keeping closely grouped together and scanning the horizon for rescue ships. After dark, the Esso Baytown reached the spot, but passed on. The survivors said that they saw the vessel’s lights and screamed frantically. Some men started to swim toward the lights. The -tanker later obtained the true position of the Cavalier at its last report and circled back. viators and seamen considered uie rescue miraculous. It was the rescue in history of a commercial aircraft forced down at sea.