Mourning Becomes Electro,

Between 1924 and 1933 the globe was girdled six times by aircraft. Last year, when Pan American Airways started carrying passengers across the Pacific, Reporters Herbert Ekins and Leo Kieran circled the globe on commercial aires. Soon after, Pan American's President Juan Terry Trippe and a party of friends also flew around the world on commercial lines. Last week, Aviatrix Amelia Earhart Putnam took off from Oakland "to establish the feasibility of circling the globe by commercial air travel" and "to determine just how human beings react under strain and fatigue." The plane was the $80,000 Lockheed Electra bought and outfitted for her by publicity wise Purdue University as a "flying laboratory." With her as navigators she took three men, but not her publicity wise husband, who stayed at Oakland to sell her autographs at $6 each.

After almost 16 hours, the twin-motored monoplane slid down at Hawaii with a new record for the jump. Next day, mechanics achieved a flurry of headlines by discovering "a potential disaster threat" in faulty lubrication of the propeller bearings. That fixed Flyer Amelia climbed aboard with two of her crew to take off for the 1,940 mi. hop to Howland Island. Down the ong concrete runway of Luke Field the ship shot at 60 m.p.h. Suddenly the left tire blew out. Lurching, the plane rumpled its landing gear, careened 1,000 ft.. on its bottom in a spray of sparks while he propellers knotted like pretzels. With sirens screaming, ambulances dashed he wreck just as Flyer Amelia stepped out white-faced. Said she: "Something must have gone wrong."

That night the mournful aviatrix booked steamship passage back to her husband in Oakland. Burbled he: "Only the grace of God saved them. . . . Only beautiful piloting saved them. . . . After her ship is repaired, Amelia probably will start the light over again from Oakland."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.