OVERDUE & MISSING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1939, Page 5

OVERDUE & MISSING

ADVENTUROUS AMERICAN AIRMAN ATTEMPT TO FLY ATLANTIC NO PROOF OF ARRIVAL IN BRITAIN. FLIGHT CALLED ACT OF MADNESS. By' Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. LONDON. May 30. The airman. Thomas 11. Smith. Los Angeles, who took off from .Maine on Sunday on an Atlantic, flight in the smallest type of aeroplane manufactured in the T nited States, is missing and is overdue somewhere in Britain. If credibility can be attached to reports, he was sighted at several points, including Foynes, Renfrew, and Speke aerodrome. Liverpool later announced the passage of a plane resembling Smith’s, but its identity is not confirmed. . A crowd of several thousands attended at Croydon aerodrome in the hope of greeting him, but pilots and officials are not convinced that he has arrived in Britain, declaring that such a flight in an 85-mile-an-hour aeroplane is sheer madness.

A message from Londonderry yesterday stated that a small unidentified monoplane was sighted at 3.15 p.m. over Londonderry, speeding eastward at a high altitude. It was impossible to say whether it was that of 'Thomas Smith. A plane which was believed to. be that of Smith was sighted off Saint Bees, Cumberland, at G. 30 p.m. yesterday. It circled over the Saint Bees coastguard station, was given a signal, and proceeded south. HOPE ALMOST GONE NO AUTHENTIC NEWS OF PLANE. (Received This Day, 9.50 a.m.) LONDON, May 30. Hope has been virtually abandoned for the trans-Atlantic flyer, Smith. There is nothing to confirm that the machine, thrice sighted yesterday, was his.