| Summary: | Aerial Search Started. AERIAL SEARCH STARTED. FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Aug. 14, (/P)—An aerial search for the missing Russian transpolar plane "centered late today in the desolate wastes of Alaska south of the Brooks range and within 200 miles of Fairbanks.Three planes, one carrying the Russian flight representatives stationed here, roared northward today. Airmen here believed the Russians were down and had lost their bearing on the 148th meridian, their projected route. Pilot Joe Crosson, famed "mercy flyer of the northland," hopped northward in a 12-place wheeled Electra, to an unannounced destination, accompanied by S. A. Smornov and M. B. Beliakof, and his copilot, Walter Hall. Shortly afterward two search parties departed in Fairchild planes. One was a pontoon-ed ship containing Pilot S. E. Robbins, Russian-speaking airways traffic manager, and Mechanic Clyde Armistead. The other, a land ship, carried Pilot Murray Stuart and Mechanic Paul Brewis. One was to land at Fort Yukon, on the arctic circle and the 146th meridian, about 150 miles northwesterly from Fairbanks. The other was to land at Beaver, just below the arctic circle and on the 147th meridian. Beaver and Fort Yukon are but about 50 miles apart. Crosson's secret destination apparently lay on a course midway between them. Meantime, dispatches from Seattle stated the air commerce bureau at Washington had granted Jimmie Mattern, famed airman, permission to search for the Russians, and that A. Vartanian, Russian flight representative at Seattle, had chartered Pilot Herb Munter's plane to fly here tomorrow.
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