Search Abandoned

Completing their first round-trip survey flights preliminary to regular transatlantic service, Pan American Airways' Clipper III and Imperial Airways' Caledonia passed each other one day last week high above the tossing wastes of the Atlantic Ocean. Both big flying boats were maintaining constant radio contact with British stations in Newfoundland and Ireland and Pan American bases in New Brunswick and New York. Few hours later the flights ended uneventfully. The Caledonia landed at Foynes in Ireland, continued to Southampton. The Clipper III landed at Botwood, Newfoundland, continued to Port Washington, N. Y.

On the other side of the world a far different story was coming to its close: the U. S. Navy's great search for Amelia Earhart Putnam and Navigator Fred Noonan, lost in mid-Pacific while flying round the world "for fun" (TIME, July 12, 19). While its commanders gritted their teeth and hoped fervently for no mishaps, 60 of the aircraft carrier Lexington'?, complement of 62 planes took the air near the point where the International Date Line crosses the Equator. Later the searching force was cut to 42 planes. One day the Lexingtons 1,500 sailors roasted under a fierce sun and the aviators smeared their faces with protective grease; another day, tropical squalls sent planes scurrying back to the ship. At week's end, having swept an area roughly the size of Texas, the Lexington pointed home for San Diego.

In Washington there were definite signs that the curtain was coming down on what Correspondent Jay Franklin called "hot aeronautics" and "the prima donna type of aviator." The House Naval Affairs Committee prepared to consider legislation which would prohibit the Navy from undertaking costly searches for lost aircraft unless the latter were in regular commercial service or on missions of "unquestionable scientific value." Pilot Dick Merrill, who flies the Atlantic by dead reckoning, and Manhattan Columnist Mark Hellinger were bluntly refused permission to make a round-the-world flight. Snapped Assistant Secretary of Commerce Colonel John Monroe Johnson: "From now on no individual will be permitted to take off on any ocean or round-the-world flight that smacks of a stunt."

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