The Daily Alaska empire., 1938-07-28
PARTY DROPS
 OUT OF SIGHT
 LAST EVENING
Plane with Notables Aboard Takes Off from White
 horse for Juneau
FAILS TO REACH
 ALASKA'S CAPITAL
Sell Elm Smith, Well- known Here Aboard
 Great Excitement

For fifteen hours last night and early this morning, Premier Mitch- ell Hepburn of Ontario, and two widely known millionaires accom- panying him, making plane flight from Whitehorse, Y. T., to Juneau, were lost to the world.
 Leaving Whitehorse at 5:15 yes- terday evening for Juneau. Hep- burn and his party were out of touch with all communication and believed lost in the mountains until an Associated Press dispatch was flashed to the world by The Empire at SIS o'clock this morning that the plane party was safe at Car cross, between Whitehorse and Skagway on the White Pass and Yukon Route. forced back by bad weather on the Taku River, within a few minutes of Juneau.
 Smith on Plane
 Accompanying Hepburn on an aerial tour of northern Canada. be- gun on July 2f from Toronto, were Bernard E. Sell 'em Ben" Smith, famous New York broker, and J. P. Bickell, millionaire mining man.
 Premier Hepburn left Carcross by train for Skagway this morning accompanied by Smith and Bickell. At Skagway, the party will board the Princess Alice to continue south to Vancouver, arriving in Juneau at 5:30 tomorrow morning and sail ing from here at o'clock, two and one-half hours later, according to advices received here.
 The plane in which Hepburn has been touring Canada with his two friends, will continue to Vancouver to meet the Princess Alice there as soon as weather is favorable.
 Juneau Remembers
 Sell em Ben" Smith is one of the most widely known bears in Wall Street and reputedly made millions of dollars by selling stocks short during the depression.
 Juneauites remember Smith for the time several years ago when he visited the Alaska Juneau gold mine here and paid hard cash for $25,- 900 gold brick which he took back to Wall Street and displayed in a prominent spot on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
 A spokesman for the Wall Street firm of Thomson McKinnon, where Smith maintained offices. accord ing to Associated Press dispatches to The Empire, said the broker left ten days ago to inspect mining properties in the Northwest. The spokesman said Smith had joined J. P. Bickell and then Hepburn for an aerial tour taking them as far north as the Dawson country.
 Bickell is President and Smith Vice President of the Mcintyre Porcupine gold mine in Ontario.
 Smith recently attracted atten- tion by reported deal with the Mexican government in connection with oil leases after Mexico expro- priated American and British owned oil properties.
 Were Near Juneau
 Taking off from Whitehorse to come to Juneau and spend the night before flying south to Camp bell River on Vancouver Island, the Hepburn plane ran into fog near Mary Joyce,s Taku River Lodge only thirty miles from Juneau.
 Turning back in the face of the unfavorable weather, the plane landed at Carcross, where more fog was closing in. With the weather unimproved this morning, Hepburn decided to entrain for Skagway.
 No missing plane has caused such a furor since Post and Rogers crashed in the summer of 1895. Dis patches from all leading news ser- vices in the United States and Canada poured into the Signal Corps station in Juneau all night and this morning, to correspon-