Evening star., 1928-08-04

following my plotting instinct. which Is
perhaps what saved us.
Pierce saw the flames and rushed
into the engine room to turn the petrol
off. Had he been three seconds later
the flames. which were coming forward
inside, would have prevented him,
Meanwhile l cut off all switches and
threw the machine into a headlong
dive through the blackneSS below. with
the vague idea of burning up the
escaped petrol If Pierce succeeded in
turning the cocks off.
All this took place so rapidly that
Gilmour, at his wireless set. was just
wondering what the red glow was about
when my dive shot him from hts seat.
had no particular ideas about landing,
as it seemed that the point would not
arise l could only vaguely see where
the water was and had no idea of the
direction of the wind or which way
the swell was running.
Lands on Wave Crest.
It, therefore. seemed impossible to
put down safely in the dark on a
burning seaplane which still had a ton
overhead AS l drew out of the dive I
saw the glow reflected on the wave
crests, / managed to put the machine
down on one crest, ran down a hill Of
water. up the next hill and just pre-
vented the machine from shooting into
the air off the next crest. After several
considerable jolts the machine came to
rest umdamaged. / ought to have been
astonished. but I had passed that
stage
A new danger now arose. During
our descent Pierce had amazingly sue
ceeded in turning off the cocks and
supplying fire extinguisher inside the
engine room and the flames were
greatly diminished But now the re-
naming flames. instead of steaming
out behind were burning directly over
the opening of the huh where 500
gallons of gasoline remained. The fire
extinguisher was exhausted and the
flames burned fiercely for Is minutes.
whilst we four stood waiting for the
final explosion that never came.
When the last flames subsidized we
ran up boat hooks TO support our
emergency wireless and Gilmour sent
out S o S calls, We got no reply
and Gilmour decided it was safer to
conserve the radio batteries by waiting
until daybreak.
When the engine room cooled we in
spected 1t for the cause of the trouble.
We found petrol pipe broken in such
manner as to cause petrol under
pressure to be forced against the en-
gine close to the exhaust AS break
age developed it must have caused q
certain accumulation of petrol to give
good send-off when the exhaust was
reached by the fumes.
The metal engine mounting was
burned through like paper in fierce
heat Had our machine not been con-
structed of metal 1t would not have
survived five minutes.
Radio Call Answered.
At daybreak Gilmour tried sending
SOS calls again and was answered
by the S. S. Cedric. I made a hasty
estimate of our position, thinking we
could check by directional wireless, but
what is an unimportant distance by
air is big one at sea, and by the
time We had sent more accurate
estimate we had drifted about 80 miles.
AS the liners searched for us our
batteries gradually ran out, and we
knew we were In a serious position.
Finally we put our last power into di-
rectional signals to the Minnewaska.
We also tried to make signals, but near
ly set the machine on fire again.
Dejectediy we waited, SeaSick from
the continual rolling. Finally Gilmour
announced casually that a ship was
sighted / called him liar and risked
looking and saw the finest sight ]
have ever seen. It was the Mime
waska steaming toward US.
II was with the greatest regret that
we finally decided 1t was impracticable
to salvage the Whale and We would
have to abandon it. But the long hours
which we drifted was a fine test OF its
Seaworthiness.
I have failed again In making the
transatlantic flight but / am in no
way disheartened. as / consider that
my failure has proved my point better
than success / have insisted always
that ii is necessary to have sea-
worthy machine and efficient wireless
for ocean flights, and / have increased
my work and delayed rather than fly
with imperfect equipment. These
principles have just saved our lives I'm
probably as bad a situation as aviators
were ever in