VERY FEW LOSSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 October 1943, Page 4

VERY FEW LOSSES

IN ATLANTIC AIR CROSSINGS TRiP OFTEN MADE BY YOUNG CREWS. OF MANY NATIONALITIES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 24. Figures at the end of September show that though 1000 aircraft made the North Atlantic crossing during the preceding year the percentage of loss is less than half of one per cent, says the Air Ministry news service. These crossings have been made from east to west and west to east in all weathers by aircraft of the Transport Command of the R.A.F. and by the United States Air Transport Command, as well as by aircraft of the British Overseas Airways Corporation. This high level of safety in conditions far more arduous than will be the case in peace is the result of three features —reliability of aircraft, the high training standard of the air crews, and ground organisation. Reinforcement aircraft, are frequently flown over by. young crews who have just finished their training in Canada and have 'taken an intensive course in the Transport Command before crossing. For many it is the first really long flight, but they make the crossing like veterans. The regular crews of the Transport Command are of many nationalities, 'and the pilots of nearly all the Allied nations are flying the Atlantic regularly—Poles, Czechs, Norwegians, French, Belgians, Dutch, Americans, and even from the Dominions.