Hankow Machine Forced Down by Fog Shanghai, June 29.
Forced down by fog, yesterday's Jairmail plane. to. Hankow became waterlogged on the surface of the Yangtze, and nearly an hour of bal-jing was necessary before it could rise again.
Hard work was carried out by the Chinese ce-pilot of the aeroplane land by the solitary passenger, Dr. Howard Barrie, before the machin Iwas lightened sufficiently to take off rom the river, Then it was flown back to Shang Despite yesterday's experience, Dr. Barrie will leave for Kiukiang by" this morning's airmail, He is lon his way to Kuling for a stay of two, months.
"The aeroplane, piloted by Mr. Norris, took off from Lunghua airport at 8.20 am, a little later than usual, bound for Nanking. Following the line of the Yangtze as usual, the machine had a good run until [90 miles, of about an hour's flight, before reaching Nanking.
Then a thick bank of fog was seen ahead. Taking in the situation with a careful eye, the pilot decided hat the best thing to do was to Jcome down on the surface of the river and to wait until the visibility improved.
Te was at about 9.50 a.m. that the machine came down, and for 25 minutes it waited. Then the pilot opened up the engine, and started to taxi along the surface. To. his surprise the plane refused to attain more than half its usual speed on the surface.
horrid suspicion crept across the mind of the pilot, and he told hhis ce-pilot quickly ' to examine the body of the machine. Lifting up_a flap in the floor, he found a foot of water below. The body of the aeroplane had sprung a leak.
'Using a small hand pump, the ce-pilot_made little impression of the volume of water. Dr. then' took a hand, using a large cuspidor was in the pas-Senger cabin, and in half an hour the two. had' reduced the water to four inches. A quarter of an hour later and it was brought down to chine along, che surface, and slow:
"The pilot again taxied the ma-
Bout Tt am: There was little vse took thea This vas a
as far better facilities for repair ge, machine to, Nanking, to be found at Shanghai, so replane was flown back, ing at Lunghua at 1230 pin.
Barrie told the "North-China Herald" yesterday that he understood the occurrence to be extremely rare in the history of the Hankow airmail line. With more passengers on board, however, it Might have been necessary to, beach the machine, and thus probably to have caused considerable delay.
'As it was, he was the only pasid Jonger, and was brought back to Shanghai in just over four hours after leaving, so that he has only Tost one day' on his trip. He showing his confidence in the line by taking off in the machine which Teaves at 8 a.m. to-day.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.