Transport: First & Last

At 5:30 one morning last week Pan American Airways' Samoan Clipper, out of Honolulu for Auckland, N. Z. on the first commercial flight between the U. S. and the Antipodes, bucked, splashed and rose off the harbor of Pago Pago on the last 1,798-mi. leg of her journey. She carried 900 Ib. of assorted freight—automobile and tractor parts, cinema projectors and films, wearing apparel. No U. S. mail was aboard because Post Office contracts for the route had not been awarded, nor had it been approved for passengers. Built-in were six new gas tanks, holding 1,020 gal. of fuel, to increase her normal 1,300-mi. cruising range to 2,800. Sea and sky burned in the blazing sunshine of a warm, windless day. . . .

At the Samoan Clipper's controls was taciturn Captain Edwin C. Musick, 43, senior commander of the line, a man whose 15,000 hours in the air during the last quarter-century made him the world's most experienced aviator. He had pioneered most of P. A. A.'s 50,000 miles of airways, flown most of P. A. A.'s 138 aircraft. His 43-year-old first officer, Cecil G. Sellers, wore a Distinguished Service Cross won with the A. E. F. and during 1936 was loaned by P. A. A. as Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's personal pilot. There were five other men in the crew.

At 6:08 a. m., the Pan American radio operator at Pago Pago got a message from Captain Musick that because of a leaking oil line he had stopped one of the motors, braked the propeller, dumped some gas and turned back to Pago Pago where he expected to land about 8:30 a. m. after cruising to reduce the weight of his fuel. At 7155 a. m. Captain Musick was reported over British Apia, 75 miles across the Pacific from Pago Pago. Half an hour later Pago Pago heard he was again dumping gasoline, expected to land in the harbor within a few minutes. All this time the Samoan Clipper'?, signals had been coming in clearly. At 8:27 a. m. they abruptly stopped.

Pan American's manager at once notified the Navy that he feared the Clipper was in trouble. The Avocet, a Navy seaplane tender based at Samoa, sent a plane aloft and at 6 p.m. took up the search itself. Also out of Pago Pago's harbor stood an old U. S. mine sweeper and hoary Count Felix von Luckner's cruising yacht, See-teufel ("Sea Devil").