Northwest History. Aviation 8. Rescue & Searching Parties, United States.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1937
• Subjects: fog; flyers; Russian airmen; Barrow; Alaska; arctic; aviators; polar ice fields; soviet north pole; Moscow; Jimmie Mattern; Fairbanks; soviet transpolar flyers; Levaneffsky; King Baird; Sikorsky Amphibian plane; Anacortes; Wash.; Burwash Landing; Y. T.; Whitehorse; S. A. Smirnov; M. L. Benedum; Pittsburgh; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Aviation; Arctic; North Pole; Pacific; Sikorsky
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/86036

Fogs Fade Away, Flyers Perk Up: Hope To Begin Hunt For Missing Russian Airmen In Earnest Soon. FOGS FADE AWAY, FLYERS PERK UP Hope to Begin Hunt for Missing Russian Airmen in Earnest Soon. BARROW, Alaska, Aug. 24. (/P)—Clearing weather in the arctic today encouraged aviators here to believe they soon would be able to fly over the polar ice fields in search of six lost soviet airmen. Heavy fogs, which kept planes grounded at Barrow this week, were dissipating. The soviet north pole camp informed Moscow by wireless the temperature had dropped below freezing, rain ceased and murky skies cleared. Pilot Jimmie Mattern dipped the wings of his giant airplane over this arctic settlement and flew to Fairbanks today to arrange further details of a search for the soviet transpolar flyers. At Moscow three soviet flyers rushed preparations for a search for Levaneffsky and his five companions. Approach of the arctic winter caused them to hasten. Baird Held Up. Pilot King Baird in a Sikorsky Amphibian plane, en route from Anacortes, Wash., to Fairbanks to participate in the search, was halted by fogs at Burwash Landing, Y. T. He arrived there from Whitehorse today. S. A. Smirnov, soviet radio engineer, waited at Fairbanks for Baird's arrival. Present plans called for Smirnov and Baird to fly to Barrow with radio equipment the latter was carrying. It was understood the equipment- was intended for Levaneffsky, probably to be dropped by parachute. M; L. Benedum, Pittsburgh oil millionaire, received an offer today from the soviet government to share expense of Jimmie Mattern's attempt to find the six missing Russian polar flyers. Benedum, who is backing Mattern's sky hunt, said he received a telephone call from the soviet embassy at Washington. "They told me they appreciated everything that Jimmy Mattern has done.