Southern Cloud

Even as Col. Lindbergh joined the staff of T. A. T. and Pan American Airways, and as Capt. Coste took office with France's Air-Union, so did Wing-Commander Charles Kingsford-Smith return home from his famed flights to become managing director of Australian National Airways Ltd. One day last month one of his company's Fokker monoplanes, the Southern Cloud, took off from Sydney for Melbourne, over 450 mi. distant, with five passengers and two pilots. It passed over Wangaratta, about 300 mi. along its course, was reported again near King Lake, 40 mi. north of Melbourne, was not again heard from. As did Lindbergh when the T. A. T. plane City of San Francisco vanished in New Mexico in 1929, Commander Kingsford-Smith flew to the search. Day after day planes criss-crossed the wilderness north of Melbourne. In such territory survivors might live for many days without reaching means of communication. Last week hope for plane and occupants was abandoned.

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