# The New York Times/1929/10/24/No Word of Diteman

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NO WORD OF DITEMAN; HOPE FOR HIM FADES
The Montana Cattleman Who Started Across Atlantic Is Long Overdue.
ODDS AGAINST HIM HUGE
Had Gasoline Sent to Greenland, but Changed Plans—Wife's Faith Unshaken.
As the hours passed yesterday with no word from or concerning Urban F. Diteman Jr., daring amateur pilot and Montana cattleman, who took off alone for England from Harbor Grace in Newfoundland, shortly before noon on Tuesday, belief that he had succeeded, slight from the start in aviation circles, disappeared entirely.
A ray of hope, however, came from Copenhagen via The Associated Press from London, indicating that Diteman, in spite of the note he left behind him may have laid a course for Greenland instead of England. An Exchange Telegraph dispatch from the Danish capital to London early today said that the Greenland Trade Department two months ago had been ordered to send gasoline to a Julianshaab, Greenland, for Urban F. Diteman Jr.
If the flier did turn northeast from Harbor Grace, however, he would have been fighting winds much of the way to Greenland. He would have faced cold severe enough to ice his wings, changing the curve so that the little yellow monoplane would drop like a lead weight into the sea.
Limit Aloft Twenty-five Hours.
Aviators here figured his outside limit for staying aloft was twenty-five hours. Thirty-five hours had passed at 10 o'clock last night. It is probable, owing to conditions over the Atlantic, that Diteman and his little low wing, open cockpit Barling went into the waves before he was 500 miles out from Newfoundland.
This statement was expressed reluctantly last night by several meteorological and aeronautical experts who have studied ocean flying and its difficulties for years.
Diteman, when he prepared to take ​off from Harbor Grace Tuesday morning, saw blue sky and found a northwest wind awaiting him. The weather was just right for the start of a transatlantic flight from the west. However, as far as could be learned, he had obtained no report of weather over the North Atlantic, even 100 miles out to sea. He had no way of knowing nor did he seek the knowledge that a high-pressure area to the north was sending its cold winds down over the Banks and stirring up fog, the flier's worst enemy. While he is credited with having had 200 hours at the stick, fliers with ten times that amount have gone into spins wehn facing the problem of flying blind.
Clarence D. Chamberlin, American distance record holder and pilot of the Belianca monoplane Columbia in its flight to Germany from Roosevelt Field in 1927, emphasized this phase of the problem last night when he asked The New York Times if there had been any word from Diteman.
"Few flyers who have confined their flying to the land realize that with a cloudy sky over the ocean your horizon line disappears and for all practical purposes you are flying blind."
Chances 100 to 1.
Chamberlin also expressed the fear that cold may heve either caused ice to form on the wings of the plane or numbed the pilot as he sat in his pen cockpit, with no protection save his flying clothes and goggles.
“We had it down to 16 degrees above zero, and it wasn't comfortable even in our closed cabin,” Chamberin said
Other pilots agreed, and one remarked that except for an experienced blind flier the chances against success were 100 to 1.
In some respects, it was agreed that, Diteman had a chance. His plane with 165 gallons and a favoring wind might have made the crossing Chamberlin said. His gasoline consumption, placed at four and a half gallons an hour by Hiteman before he started was altogether too low, experts here believe. They figured he would use six or seven gallons an hour which at the most would give him only twenty-seven hours in the air.
Over the eastern half of the ocean, according to Dr. James H. Kimball, Diteman should have found clear weather and a helping wind until close to Ireland. Last night and yesterday afternoon weather was not good on the Irish Coast. Rain poured from the low clouds all along the coast and aloft gale winds blew.
Watch Kept in Vain.
Nowhere was there any word of the filer. For the first thousand miles he did not cross the ship lanes, even if he held to the Great Circle course for Ireland. One liner, the Caledonia, was about 800 miles off the Irish coast yesterday. Her watch kept a sharp lookout, but. saw nothing in the air or onthe water that resembled the little Barling.
In the course supposedly taken by the flier several ships must pass within the next twenty-four hours. Those bound east from New York would hardly get far enough north to find him should he be floating, as the sea lanes follow a southerly course until they are more than 1,250 miles out, Near Europe, however, are the George Washington the Stuttgart and the American Banker, all bound east. Bound west and strung out from 500 to 1,500 miles east of New York are the de Grasse, the Cameronia, Muenchen, Reliance, Tuscania, Lapland, United States, Cleveland, Adriatic, Scythia, American Banker and Nieuw Amsterdam, each due in New York between Sunday and Tuesday in the order named.
In addition there are several Canadian Pacific liners plying the direct route from Montreal to England and more than seventy freighters, some of which are not equipped with radio, and though they might have picked up the lone aviator they could not have reported it.
Gasoline Sent to Greenland.
Special Cable to the New York Times
COPENHAGEN, Thursday, Oct, 24—Two months the Greenland Trading Company received a letter from a New York firm requesting that about 600 liters of gasoline should be sent to Julian Haab in Southeastern Greenland and held there for Mr. Diteman. Who Mr. Diteman was the letter did not explain, but the company now assumes he was the Montana cattleman who started across the Atlantic Tuesday.
The request was complied with and the gasoline is now at Julian Haab. At 3 o'clock this morning, Danish time, no report had reached Copenhagen that the filer had reached Greenland, although radio connection had been maintained throughout the night.
Changed Greenland Plan.
BILLINGS, Mont., Oct. 23 (AP). — When asked tonight about a shipment of gasoline to Julianshaab, Greenland, for her husband, Mrs. Urban F. Diteman Jr. said that two. month ago they had planned that his flght would be to Europe via Greenland and Iceland, but that a few days ago ho changed his mind and decided to make one hop from Newfoundland to London.
He had ordered supplies previously to be deposited at the proposed island relay points.
Her hope apparently undimmed after thirty hours of suspense, Mrs. Diteman today listened, attentively but unmoved, to press dispatches asserting belief of aviation authorities that her husband. had joined those other pioneers of transoceanic aviation swallowed by the sea.
Not until tomorrow, Mrs. Diteman indicated, will she be gravely, concerned over the fate of her husband.
“I'm sure he has landed in some out-of-the-day place along the Irish coast and has been unable to get a message out yet," she commented on hearing the latest reports from the other side. She said he would first notify her and then The Associated Press when he landed.
Mrs, Diteman believes her husband had fuel for twenty-seven hours’ flying, and, tracing an air map with her finger, she indicated a 1,700-mile course he might follow. She thought he might have flown north of that course.