Evening star., 1928-08-04
BY CAPT. FRANK r. COURTNEY.
Special wireless Dispatch Written Exclu-
Sively for The star and North American
Newspaper Alliance.


(Copyright. 1927
Now that we are safe aboard the
MinnewaSka. l am writing the story of
our experience on our flight from the
Azores to this point in midocean. and
think the clearest way to tell what hap
pened is to do it in chronological order.
even though the exciting part comes
at tn eend I refer, of course, to the fact
that our plane caught fire and brought
our fight to an abrupt and almost
tragic finish.
We left Horta at 6:55. Greenwich
mean time Wednesday evening. The
weather forecast indicated light south
erly winds changing to strong westerly
winds / decided 10 ffF to the southerly
course in order to put the head winds
more abeam as We finished the trip.
We expected to arrive at Newfound-
land in II hours. Our compass and
course were checked on Flores and
everything was correct. with the weather
fine. After We were flying three hours
the moon rose. but 1t was gradually
blanketed by increasing clouds. I de-
cided that the best height to fly was
1900 feet. The other men in the ship
were comfortably slowed and enjoying
the ride
Hugh Gilmour, our radio man, got
the wireless working and steamship
informed us that the wind was north
while another somewhere ahead report
ed il northwest. This was quite different
from the forecast and started to re-
calculate our course. Whilst doing this
lost sight of the sun and sky and to-
ward IL O'Clock, Greenwich mean time.
we ran into heavy storm. We flew
through binding heavy rain and hit
many ferociouS bumps. which was very
trying on our heavily loaded flying boat.
The clouds were so thick that some
times our engine exhaust flames failed
TO reveal the wing tips.
But the light of the flames showed
perfect carhuretion. I was glad OF
that. The engines ran perfectly and
our instruments behaved so accurately
that I began to develop the feeling of
absolute certainty of our arrival at
Newfoundland and didn't care two
boots If it rained all the way
Encounters Heavy Clouds.
After two hours the rain stopped. but
was still flying blind at about 1900
feet. I climbed to inspect the top of
the clouds. which / found at $500 feet
I decided this was too high to encoun-
ter the adverse winds. So descended
experimentally and came out below the
clouds at 1000 feet. 1t was too dark
to see the water and I decided to
maintain a height of not less than
1000 feet in case of barometer changes
causing altimeter error.
At 2:15 o'clock the clouds began to
break up and the moon was occasion
ally glimpsed / climbed to 1,500 feet
and was discussing our engines with
Fred Pierce, our mechanic. when saw
the most horrible sight in my whole
flying career realized that the
CHEEKY exhaust fame behind had sud-
denly changed to a dull red glow
Looking back was stunned 10 see
the rear engine enveloped in flames
which. even as I looked, stretched out
like giant glowlamp rearward over
the seat occupied by Elwood Hosmer
and beyond the rudder and tail.
In the darkness the whole machine
must have appeared like groteSque
red comet The whole situation seemed
like a nightmare and quite unreal.
Even now find 1t difficult to realize
we were in a blazing aeroplane over
Midatlantic at midnight.
1t never occurred to me that we
could reach the water before the tail
vas burned or that / could maneuver
the ship 10 alignt safely. so that my
subsequent actions we're merely blindly