Imperial Valley press., 1932-02-01
SEVERE STORM
PREVENTS HUNT
FOR LOST PLANE
Abandon Hopes For Safe
ty OF Eight Aboard
Century Liner.

LOS ANGELES, Feb. l. UP
Earthbound since Friday by the
same storm which probably sent
eight persons to death aboard a
Century Pacific Skyliner, scores OF
airplanes awaited clearing weather
today to join in search for the
missing ship.
The mountainous territory be-
tween Bakersfield and Los Ange-
les, in which the 10 passenger plane
was believed to have crashed late
Friday, was swept by rain, sleet
and snow yesterday and last night.
Hope was virtually abandoned
that the three women and five men
aboard would be found alive. They
appeared doomed through exposure
If they had escaped death in land
ing.
Weary, half frozen men on SnoW%
shoes plodded through the storm
yesterday to cover as best they
might the most likely areas through
hundreds of square miles in a des-
olate region.
Exhausted, they returned to con-
centration points last night, con-
vinced that drifted snow, piled
high by fierce gales, had covered
the plane.
Undaunted, however, they pre-
pared to continue today in the be-
lief that even should weather per-
nit searching airplanes to ascend,
observers would be unable to find
the missing ship because of the
heavy snow. The weather bureau
predicted continued storms today.
Authorities considered it probable
that the ship crashed in the vi
cinity of Frazier mountain, possibly
in a box canyon known as Cuddy's
Cut, 80 miles northwest of Lebec
in the Lockwood valley region.
There, searchers returning last
night reported, drifts as high as
tree tops are all through the box
canyons, and if the plane crashed
in this territory we might not find
it until the wind shifts, or a thaw
sets in
The searcn centered in the Lock
wood valley district chiefly on the
strength of reports made by Is
year-old Freddie Tiff, his mother
and another l5-year boy, Tom
Cuddy.
Youth Heard Plane
All three live there at the base
of lofty Mount Frazier. Young
Tiff told authorities:
Il guess it was about o'clock
Friday afternoon when I heard a
plane. 1t was the first time an air.
plane ever came over the valley.
1T didn't seem to be more than
300 feet over the ground, and just
as it went over our house the
lights went on. 1t kept going
toward Cuddy canyon"
Young Cuddy said he heard and
saw the ship further up the can
yon. He, also, thought it was fly
ing low.
The stories convinced veteran
flyers that Pilot j. V. Sandblom
had been forced off his course, and
was battling vainly to get out of
the canyon, where terrific winds
sweep down from the mountain.
And it couldn't be DONE" Sand
blom's friends said. THAT canyon
was a death trap in the weather
he met Friday night"
Although this appeared to fix the
location of the plane, an area ap-
proximately 100 miles square, all of
1t rough and treacherous, was
blocked off for search.
In all that district but two valleys
offered reasonably safe landing
places. These were checked as thor
oughly as possible.
1t was tremendous, difficult
area to cover afoot and horseback.
Airplanes offered the best hope of
locating the ship, but these were
earthbound, and the fall of snow
may have now covered the craft or
its Wreckage.