Papua
p. 38 · Read in the full issue
Another Plane Down in Papua
From a Special Correspondent
Port Moresby, June 17.
A DRAGON aircraft, owned by Man dated Airlines, and piloted by Captain B. H. Smith, made a forced landing in the Papuan area en route to Australia via Daru and Thurs day Island, on June 14.
A RAAF aircraft searched the Papuan Gulf the next day but failed to sight the Dragon. Another plane, belonging to Mr.
Bobby Gibbes’s new service, located the Dragon on an emergency airstrip In Papua later that afternoon,* and Captain Smith was rescued the following day.
This is the second occasion, within a couple of months, on which a Dragon aircraft has failed to make the crossing to Australia via Thursday Island.
New Guinea’s air record, which was unsurpassed before the war, is now be ginning to look rather dubious.