Northwest History. State History. Aeronautics, Continued Airports, Commercial Service. Air Races & Shows & Non-Stop Flights. 1931 to 1937.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1937
• Subjects: Russian flyers; Pilot Jammie Mattern; Oakland; AFairbanks; Alaska; Herb Munter; A. Vartanian; Airplanes; Russia; Radio stations; United States signal corps station; Russian planes; Sigismund Levanevsky; Russian transpolar plane; Schelkoff Airport; Northwest History > History > 20th Century; United States > Aeronautics; Continued Airports; Commercial Service > 20th Century; Anchorage; Arctic; Fairbanks; North Pole; Ketchikan; Siberia
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/141374

Mattern Flies Over Seattle On Hop North: Noted Jilot Will Join Serach For Lost Russian Flyers; No More Signals Received. MATTERN FlIES HER SEATTLE Noted Pilot Will Join Search For Lost Russian Flyers; No More Signals Received Headed for the bleak Arctic wastes where six Russian flyers are believed grounded on an ice flow and anxiously awaiting rescue, Pilot Jimmie Mattern roared northward above Seattle at 10:23 a.m. yesterday, en route from Oakland, Calif., to Fairbanks, Alaska. Headed in the same direction and a few hours in front of him was a slower plane, piloted by Herb Munter of Ketchikan, and bearing A. Vartanian, Russian flight agent. Vartanian boarded the plane at the Lake Union float of the Kurtzer Flying Service at 8 a.m. Munter flew from Ketchikan to Seattle during the early morning hours. Both planes were expected at Fairbanks late last night. MESSAGES AWAITED Throughout Alaska and at many professional and amateur radio stations in Siberia, Russia and continental United States, operators listened at their keys for some faint sign from the Russian flyers. They were last heard clearly at 6:35 a.m. Saturday morning, in communication with a Russian station. They were saying "How do you hear me? Wait." At 7:13 a.m. the United States signal corps station at Anchorage picked up a garbled message, part of which seemed to be: "No bearings . . . Having trouble with . . . Wave band." But since then there has been nothing but silence. From Moscow, International News Service sent word that the Russian government has ordered eight planes and two ice breakers to proceed at once to the area in which the missing flyers are believed to be. 3 PLANES TAKE OFF Three Russian planes had already taken off at noon yesterday, five others were to follow soon. Meanwhile the Russian experimental station at the North Pole had been directed to convert its facilities into an air base for the use of the rescue planes. Mattern, grimly winging his way to the Arctic, was intent on repaying a kindness which the Russian commander of the lost plane, Sigismund Levanevsky, showed him in July of 1933. Then, Levanevsky, who is known as the "Lindbergh of Russia," rescued Mattern when he crashed on the ice fields of the Siberian coastal apron during an around-the-world attempt. Mattern himself has permission of the Russian and American governments to try a transpolar flight to Moscow next spring. REFUELING SHIP DUE Trailing the popular American flyer today will be a trimotored plane from Los Angeles which will be used to refuel Mattern's ship over Fairbanks during the search. The Russians transpolar plane could not have remained aloft after noon yesterday. At that time fifty- five hours had elapsed since they took off from Schelkoff Airport, near Moscow, at 6:15 p.m. Thursday. They had only forty hours' fuel supply aboard. Shortly before the last message the Russians had radioed that the right outboard motor had failed because of a damaged oil line.