Moncrieff and Hood
Encyclopedia
Lieutenant John Moncrieff and Captain George Hood were two New Zealanders who vanished on 10 January 1928 while attempting the first trans-Tasman
flight from Australia
to New Zealand
. Radio signals were received from their aircraft for 12 hours after their departure from Sydney
, but despite a number of purported sightings in New Zealand, and many land searches in the intervening years, no trace of the aviator
s or their aircraft has ever been found.
He enlisted in December 1917, and took a flying course with the Canterbury (NZ) Aviation Company at the Sockburn aerodrome (later renamed Wigram Aerodrome
). Qualifying for his wings
after the 1918 Armistice
brought an end to the fighting, he resumed his former position as second in charge in a motor garage in Wellington
.
, the principal town of the Wairarapa
district in the south-eastern part on the North Island
of New Zealand, the son of one of the early pioneers in the district. Educated in Masterton, he was fascinated by flying from boyhood. The First World War provided the opportunity for him to become an aviator. Leaving New Zealand in 1914 as a sergeant with the 9th Squadron of the 9th (Wellington East Coast) Mounted Rifles
, Hood saw service with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force
in Gallipoli
and in France. At the end of 1916 he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps
, qualifying as a service pilot on 13 October 1917. Thirteen days later he was seriously injured in a crash, which resulted in his lower right leg being amputated. Despite this he maintained an interest in aviation, and took every opportunity to keep flying on his return to New Zealand.
for some time. In 1925 the Southland Times newspaper announced that Moncrieff was to “attempt a flight from Australia to New Zealand in a four-seater, 450 hp open-sea reconnaissance machine made by William Beardmore and Company
”. It was estimated about £8,500 would be needed to purchase the aircraft and to cover expenses, but little came of this proposal and Moncreiff’s project lapsed for the time being.
However, in 1927 several notable ocean crossing flights were successfully completed. In May Charles Lindbergh
won the Orteig Prize
by flying non-stop 3,600 miles/5,800 km. from New York
to Paris
in a single-engined Ryan monoplane
; in June, lieutenants Lester J. Maitland
and Albert Hergenberger flew 2,400 miles/3,860 km. from Oakland, California
to Honolulu, Hawaii
in a three-engined Fokker C-2 named ‘Bird of Paradise’. Then, in October, Captain Dieudonne Costes and Lieutenant Commander Joseph Le Brix flew 2125 miles/3,420 km. across the South Atlantic from Senegal
to Port Natal in Brazil
in a single-engined Breguet XIX. These flights raised aviation’s profile and generated considerable interest among the general public.
, a rural town in the Tararua District
. Kight had qualified as a pilot in 1916, and, like Moncrieff and Hood, was a founding member of the New Zealand Air Force, constituted as part of the Territorial Force (New Zealand) in 1923. Kight became heavily involved in raising finance, organising the flight and dealing with the Australian and New Zealand governments. Hood, who at the time made a living driving a taxi in Masterton, came into the scheme at a later date, finding generous support from people in the Wairarapa.
As the subscription list grew Kight cabled Ryan Airlines
Inc. in California for quotations on an aircraft similar to that used by Lindbergh during his trans-Atlantic flight. After Lindbergh’s flight Moncrieff, Kight and Hood felt confident that a Ryan monoplane would be suitable for the 1,430 mile/2,300 km Tasman flight, even though Lindbergh’s custom-built Spirit of St. Louis
differed significantly from the production version of the Ryan Brougham
that was ordered for the Tasman flight.
. The standard aircraft had five seats, arranged as two pairs front and rear, with a single fifth seat behind the rear pair, but to give the necessary range an extra fuel tank was fitted in the cabin in the place normally occupied by the front left seat, giving a total fuel capacity of 200 gallons/900 litres, and a flight duration of about 20 hours. The extra fuel tank created an unforeseen problem as it precluded any chance of pilots changing places in the air. This restricted the control of the aircraft to one person for the duration of the flight, and meant any other crew members were essentially passengers.
The aircraft was named Aotearoa
- usually translated as "the land of the long white cloud” - as the most widely known and commonly accepted Māori
name for New Zealand. It was registered G-AUNZ, thus referencing both countries of departure and destination in its official designation.
The Aotearoa was reassembled at Point Cook
, Melbourne
after delivery and was test-flown by Moncrieff on 29 December 1927. On 2 January Aotearoa took off
for Richmond
, near Sydney, piloted by Moncrieff and with Hood, Kight and Aircraftman F. Ward from No 1 squadron of the R.A.A.F
on board. Several hours later they landed near Bong Bong, an hour short of their destination and uncertain of their position. During the flight they believed they were sending radio messages, but found on landing that their radio had not been working at all.
On arrival at Richmond the following day, the engine was checked and adjusted, and the radio and generator overhauled. After a further short test flight on 7 January, Moncrieff ordered the aircraft to be fuelled for the flight to New Zealand.
While all these preparations were going on there were a number of exchanges between the Australian and New Zealand governments over the suitability of the Aotearoa for the flight. In September 1927 the Australian aviation authorities had prohibited a Lieutenant K. M . Frewen from attempting a flight from Hobart
, Tasmania
to Bluff
unless Frewen used a seaplane
, in the belief that a landplane was not suitable for long-distance flights over water. The Australian federal authorities then went further when they announced that they “intended to prevent the carrying of passengers in any machine that was not either a seaplane, a flying boat
, or an amphibian
on any flight over the sea for a greater distance than 50 miles”. The Aotearoa was a landplane, with no ability to land on the sea. After a somewhat confused and confusing exchange of messages, the matter was finally clarified on 3 January, when the Australians announced that a veto
on the flight had been lifted after an exchange of cables with the New Zealand government.
It had always been the intention that the aircraft would carry only two people on the Tasman flight. As Moncrieff had been the only person to pilot the Aotearoa, and the trip was his idea, he was the obvious choice to pilot the aircraft. On 6 January, Kight and Hood tossed a coin
to decide who would be the second crewman, with Hood winning the toss.
The flight was expected to take about 14 hours so a take-off in the early morning hours was necessary to enable a landing in daylight at Trentham racecourse, the chosen destination in the Hutt Valley north of Wellington
, the capital city of New Zealand.
With the aircraft and the crew ready, and the way cleared by the aviation authorities, attention turned to the weather. On the evening of 9 January conditions were assessed as ‘particularly favourable’ and Moncrieff and Hood went to Richmond to prepare the aircraft. After further weather information from New Zealand and ships at sea, they decided to take off on their flight.
32 minutes later, at 0546 NZ time, the officer of the watch on the trans-tasman steamer Maunganui , 12 miles east of Sydney Heads
, heard ‘the soft regular whirr’ of an aircraft engine passing overhead, although he did not see the aircraft itself. The timing and the position of the steamer indicated an aircraft groundspeed of 90 mph/145 km/h, about right for the intended flight.
For simplicity, Moncrieff and Hood had planned to fly a rhumb line
course, intending to make landfall at Farewell Spit
at the western entrance to Cook Strait
. This was not the shortest course - this would have required more complicated navigation to fly a great circle
course - but the difference over the trans-Tasman flight was not prohibitive. Unexpected winds could cause a drift north or south of the intended course, making an exact landfall unlikely, but the Aotearoa carried no flight instruments
that could detect or compensate for such a drift. The radio had no navigational capability or function.
Arrangements for radio contact were for the aircraft to send out a continuous tone for five minutes every quarter of an hour, as the pilots had only a rudimentary knowledge of Morse code
. This schedule was not adhered to, for the tone was heard for longer periods at irregular intervals. At 1722 NZ time, when the aircraft had been just over 12 hours in the air, and should have been within about 200 miles of New Zealand, signals from the Aotearoa abruptly ceased.
With the cessation of radio signals hopefulness gave way to anxiety, although the relatively poor reliability of airborne radio at the time did not necessarily mean that loss of signal equalled the loss of the aircraft. Searchlights were used to illuminate the clouds that were building up, and rockets were still being sent up at 0140 on the 11th, but the crowd and the aviator’s wives waited in vain. Moncrieff, Hood, and the Aotearoa were never seen or heard from again.
s or flares
, and the only source of light apart from the aircraft’s exhaust was a small pocket torch that would not be seen at any distance. Some of the most apparently reliable sightings could be interpreted as the Aotearoa making landfall north of the intended track near Cape Egmont
, tracking along the Southern Taranaki coast, and then cutting across the South Taranaki Bight
to the coast near Paekakariki
, intending to round Cape Terawhiti
and fly up Wellington Harbour
to the Hutt Valley. This would be a perfectly valid scenario had the aircraft been drifted north of its intended trans-tasman course.
Starting on 11 January, air, sea and land searches were carried out for many days in the hope of finding the aviators alive at sea, or on a remote beach, or at least of finding some wreckage that might indicate their fate. Nothing was found at the time. Many land searches have been made since then, mostly centering on Mt Stokes, at 1203m the highest point in the rugged bush-clad Marlborough Sounds
area, based on a number of supposed sightings in the area. No evidence has ever been found of any wreckage of the Aotearoa, or any other trace of the aviators.
The occurrence of supposed sightings around the time and approximate place of an expected arrival mirrored generally similar events after the first attempted Paris-New York flight by Nungesser and Coli
in May 1927, where many reports of sightings were made in North America, and land searches are still being carried out from time to time.
’, the name it still bears today. A number of streets throughout New Zealand are named ‘Moncrieff’ or ‘Hood’ as memorials to the pioneers.
and Charles Ulm
achieved what Hood and Moncrieff had died attempting, when they landed the Southern Cross
at Wigram, Christchurch.
Trans-Tasman
Trans-Tasman is an adjective used primarily in Australia and New Zealand, which signifies an interrelationship between both countries. Its name originates from the Tasman Sea which lies between the two countries...
flight from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
to New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. Radio signals were received from their aircraft for 12 hours after their departure from Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, but despite a number of purported sightings in New Zealand, and many land searches in the intervening years, no trace of the aviator
Aviator
An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
s or their aircraft has ever been found.
Lieutenant John Moncrieff
John Robert Moncrieff was a New Zealander by adoption, being born at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands on 22 September 1899. Educated at Leith Academy, Scotland, he emigrated to New Zealand early at the age of 16 where he trained as a motor engineer.He enlisted in December 1917, and took a flying course with the Canterbury (NZ) Aviation Company at the Sockburn aerodrome (later renamed Wigram Aerodrome
Wigram Aerodrome
Wigram Aerodrome is a former Royal New Zealand Air Force base located in the Christchurch suburb of Wigram. It is named after Sir Henry Wigram. Originally home to the RNZAF Central Flying School , it was decommissioned in 1995 following the CFS' relocation to RNZAF Ohakea two years earlier.Wigram...
). Qualifying for his wings
Aircrew brevet
An aircrew brevet is the badge worn on the left breast, above any medal ribbons, by qualified aircrew in the Royal Air Force, British Army, Indian Air Force, Canadian Forces, Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, South African Air Force and Sri Lanka Air...
after the 1918 Armistice
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
brought an end to the fighting, he resumed his former position as second in charge in a motor garage in Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
.
Captain George Hood
George Hood was born on 24 June 1891 in MastertonMasterton
Masterton is a large town and local government district in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. It is the largest town in the Wairarapa, a region separated from Wellington by the Rimutaka ranges...
, the principal town of the Wairarapa
Wairarapa
Wairarapa is a geographical region of New Zealand. It occupies the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service towns, with Masterton being the largest...
district in the south-eastern part on the North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
of New Zealand, the son of one of the early pioneers in the district. Educated in Masterton, he was fascinated by flying from boyhood. The First World War provided the opportunity for him to become an aviator. Leaving New Zealand in 1914 as a sergeant with the 9th Squadron of the 9th (Wellington East Coast) Mounted Rifles
Wellington Mounted Rifle Regiment
The Wellington Mounted Regiment was a New Zealand Mounted Regiment formed for service during the Great War. It was formed from units of the Territorial Force consisting of the Queen Alexandra's 2nd Mounted Rifles the 6th Mounted Rifles and 9th Mounted Rifles.They served in the Middle Eastern...
, Hood saw service with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force
New Zealand Expeditionary Force
The New Zealand Expeditionary Force was the title of the military forces sent from New Zealand to fight for Britain during World War I and World War II. Ultimately, the NZEF of World War I was known as the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force...
in Gallipoli
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace , the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek "Καλλίπολις" , meaning "Beautiful City"...
and in France. At the end of 1916 he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
, qualifying as a service pilot on 13 October 1917. Thirteen days later he was seriously injured in a crash, which resulted in his lower right leg being amputated. Despite this he maintained an interest in aviation, and took every opportunity to keep flying on his return to New Zealand.
The Trans-Tasman attempt in context
Moncrieff had been wanting to fly the Tasman SeaTasman Sea
The Tasman Sea is the large body of water between Australia and New Zealand, approximately across. It extends 2,800 km from north to south. It is a south-western segment of the South Pacific Ocean. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, the first recorded European...
for some time. In 1925 the Southland Times newspaper announced that Moncrieff was to “attempt a flight from Australia to New Zealand in a four-seater, 450 hp open-sea reconnaissance machine made by William Beardmore and Company
William Beardmore and Company
William Beardmore and Company was a Scottish engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate based in Glasgow and the surrounding Clydeside area. It was active between about 1890 and 1930 and at its peak employed about 40,000 people...
”. It was estimated about £8,500 would be needed to purchase the aircraft and to cover expenses, but little came of this proposal and Moncreiff’s project lapsed for the time being.
However, in 1927 several notable ocean crossing flights were successfully completed. In May Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
won the Orteig Prize
Orteig Prize
The Orteig Prize was a $25,000 reward offered on May 19, 1919, by New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig to the first allied aviator to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris or vice-versa. On offer for five years, it attracted no competitors...
by flying non-stop 3,600 miles/5,800 km. from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in a single-engined Ryan monoplane
Monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...
; in June, lieutenants Lester J. Maitland
Lester J. Maitland
Lester James Maitland was an aviation pioneer and career officer in the United States Army Air Forces and its predecessors. Maitland began his career as a Reserve pilot in the U.S. Army Air Service during World War I and rose to brigadier general in the Michigan Air National Guard following World...
and Albert Hergenberger flew 2,400 miles/3,860 km. from Oakland, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to Honolulu, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
in a three-engined Fokker C-2 named ‘Bird of Paradise’. Then, in October, Captain Dieudonne Costes and Lieutenant Commander Joseph Le Brix flew 2125 miles/3,420 km. across the South Atlantic from Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
to Port Natal in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
in a single-engined Breguet XIX. These flights raised aviation’s profile and generated considerable interest among the general public.
Preparations
After Lindbergh’s flight Moncrieff again proposed a trans-Tasman flight. On gaining some financial backing from an uncle, Moncrieff secured the assistance of Captain Ivan Kight, a well-known barrister and solicitor from DannevirkeDannevirke
Dannevirke , is a rural service town in the Manawatu-Wanganui Region of the North Island, New Zealand. It is the major town of the administrative Tararua District, the easternmost of the districts in which the Regional Council has responsibilities...
, a rural town in the Tararua District
Tararua District
The Tararua District lies near the south-east corner of New Zealand's North Island. Created in 1989, it was named after the Tararua Range, which forms much of its western boundary. It has a population of and an area of 4,360.56 km²....
. Kight had qualified as a pilot in 1916, and, like Moncrieff and Hood, was a founding member of the New Zealand Air Force, constituted as part of the Territorial Force (New Zealand) in 1923. Kight became heavily involved in raising finance, organising the flight and dealing with the Australian and New Zealand governments. Hood, who at the time made a living driving a taxi in Masterton, came into the scheme at a later date, finding generous support from people in the Wairarapa.
As the subscription list grew Kight cabled Ryan Airlines
Ryan Airlines
Ryan Airline Company was an airline company founded by T. Claude Ryan and Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Mahoney at San Diego, California on April 19, 1925. They had earlier established a scheduled service between San Diego and Los Angeles with a fare of $14.50 one-way and $22.50 round-trip...
Inc. in California for quotations on an aircraft similar to that used by Lindbergh during his trans-Atlantic flight. After Lindbergh’s flight Moncrieff, Kight and Hood felt confident that a Ryan monoplane would be suitable for the 1,430 mile/2,300 km Tasman flight, even though Lindbergh’s custom-built Spirit of St. Louis
Spirit of St. Louis
The Spirit of St. Louis is the custom-built, single engine, single-seat monoplane that was flown solo by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.Lindbergh took off in the Spirit from Roosevelt...
differed significantly from the production version of the Ryan Brougham
Ryan Brougham
The Ryan Brougham was a small single-engine airliner produced in the United States in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Its design was reminiscent of the M-1 mailplane first produced by Ryan in 1926, and like it, was a high-wing, strut-braced monoplane of conventional design.-Design and...
that was ordered for the Tasman flight.
The Aotearoa
The aircraft ordered for the flight was a slightly modified early model Ryan B-1 Brougham high-wing monoplane, powered by a 220 hp/165 kW nine-cylinder air-cooled Wright J-5 radial engineRadial engine
The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders point outward from a central crankshaft like the spokes on a wheel...
. The standard aircraft had five seats, arranged as two pairs front and rear, with a single fifth seat behind the rear pair, but to give the necessary range an extra fuel tank was fitted in the cabin in the place normally occupied by the front left seat, giving a total fuel capacity of 200 gallons/900 litres, and a flight duration of about 20 hours. The extra fuel tank created an unforeseen problem as it precluded any chance of pilots changing places in the air. This restricted the control of the aircraft to one person for the duration of the flight, and meant any other crew members were essentially passengers.
The aircraft was named Aotearoa
Aotearoa
Aotearoa is the most widely known and accepted Māori name for New Zealand. It is used by both Māori and non-Māori, and is becoming increasingly widespread in the bilingual names of national organisations, such as the National Library of New Zealand / Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.-Translation:The...
- usually translated as "the land of the long white cloud” - as the most widely known and commonly accepted Māori
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...
name for New Zealand. It was registered G-AUNZ, thus referencing both countries of departure and destination in its official designation.
The Aotearoa was reassembled at Point Cook
Point Cook, Victoria
Point Cook is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 25 km south-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Wyndham. At the 2006 Census, Point Cook had a population of 14,162, now it is estimated that the population of Point Cook is 32,167...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
after delivery and was test-flown by Moncrieff on 29 December 1927. On 2 January Aotearoa took off
Takeoff
Takeoff is the phase of flight in which an aerospace vehicle goes from the ground to flying in the air.For horizontal takeoff aircraft this usually involves starting with a transition from moving along the ground on a runway. For balloons, helicopters and some specialized fixed-wing aircraft , no...
for Richmond
Richmond, New South Wales
Richmond is a town in New South Wales, north-west of Sydney, in the Local Government Area of the City of Hawkesbury. It is located at a latitude of 33° 35' 54" South and a longitude of 150°45' 04" east, 19 metres above sea level on the alluvial Hawkesbury River flats, at the foot of the Blue...
, near Sydney, piloted by Moncrieff and with Hood, Kight and Aircraftman F. Ward from No 1 squadron of the R.A.A.F
Royal Australian Air Force
The Royal Australian Air Force is the air force branch of the Australian Defence Force. The RAAF was formed in March 1921. It continues the traditions of the Australian Flying Corps , which was formed on 22 October 1912. The RAAF has taken part in many of the 20th century's major conflicts...
on board. Several hours later they landed near Bong Bong, an hour short of their destination and uncertain of their position. During the flight they believed they were sending radio messages, but found on landing that their radio had not been working at all.
On arrival at Richmond the following day, the engine was checked and adjusted, and the radio and generator overhauled. After a further short test flight on 7 January, Moncrieff ordered the aircraft to be fuelled for the flight to New Zealand.
While all these preparations were going on there were a number of exchanges between the Australian and New Zealand governments over the suitability of the Aotearoa for the flight. In September 1927 the Australian aviation authorities had prohibited a Lieutenant K. M . Frewen from attempting a flight from Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
, Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
to Bluff
Bluff, New Zealand
Bluff is a town and seaport in the Southland region, on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is the southern-most town in New Zealand and, despite Slope Point being further to the south, is colloquially used to refer to the southern extremity of the country...
unless Frewen used a seaplane
Seaplane
A seaplane is a fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing on water. Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are a subclass called amphibian aircraft...
, in the belief that a landplane was not suitable for long-distance flights over water. The Australian federal authorities then went further when they announced that they “intended to prevent the carrying of passengers in any machine that was not either a seaplane, a flying boat
Flying boat
A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a float plane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by under-wing floats or by wing-like projections from the fuselage...
, or an amphibian
Amphibious aircraft
An amphibious aircraft or amphibian is an aircraft that can take off and land on either land or water. Fixed-wing amphibious aircraft are seaplanes that are equipped with retractable wheels, at the expense of extra weight and complexity, plus diminished range and fuel economy compared to planes...
on any flight over the sea for a greater distance than 50 miles”. The Aotearoa was a landplane, with no ability to land on the sea. After a somewhat confused and confusing exchange of messages, the matter was finally clarified on 3 January, when the Australians announced that a veto
Veto
A veto, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to unilaterally stop an official action, especially enactment of a piece of legislation...
on the flight had been lifted after an exchange of cables with the New Zealand government.
It had always been the intention that the aircraft would carry only two people on the Tasman flight. As Moncrieff had been the only person to pilot the Aotearoa, and the trip was his idea, he was the obvious choice to pilot the aircraft. On 6 January, Kight and Hood tossed a coin
Coin flipping
Coin flipping or coin tossing or heads or tails is the practice of throwing a coin in the air to choose between two alternatives, sometimes to resolve a dispute between two parties...
to decide who would be the second crewman, with Hood winning the toss.
The flight was expected to take about 14 hours so a take-off in the early morning hours was necessary to enable a landing in daylight at Trentham racecourse, the chosen destination in the Hutt Valley north of Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
, the capital city of New Zealand.
With the aircraft and the crew ready, and the way cleared by the aviation authorities, attention turned to the weather. On the evening of 9 January conditions were assessed as ‘particularly favourable’ and Moncrieff and Hood went to Richmond to prepare the aircraft. After further weather information from New Zealand and ships at sea, they decided to take off on their flight.
The flight
The engine was started at 0200 Sydney time on Tuesday 10 January, but an over-supply of engine oil caused oil to spray on to the windscreen. This was quickly fixed, but press reporters insisting on last-minute interviews further delayed take-off and the Aotearoa did not become airborne until 0244 (0514 NZ time), immediately turning on course for New Zealand. The take-off on the Tasman flight was only the aircraft’s fifth since being reassembled after delivery.32 minutes later, at 0546 NZ time, the officer of the watch on the trans-tasman steamer Maunganui , 12 miles east of Sydney Heads
Sydney Heads
Sydney Heads , is the entrance to Port Jackson in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.North Head and Quarantine Head are to the north, South Head and Dunbar Head are to the south. Middle Head, Georges Head and Chowder Head are to the west and within the bay...
, heard ‘the soft regular whirr’ of an aircraft engine passing overhead, although he did not see the aircraft itself. The timing and the position of the steamer indicated an aircraft groundspeed of 90 mph/145 km/h, about right for the intended flight.
For simplicity, Moncrieff and Hood had planned to fly a rhumb line
Rhumb line
In navigation, a rhumb line is a line crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, i.e. a path derived from a defined initial bearing...
course, intending to make landfall at Farewell Spit
Farewell Spit
Farewell Spit is a narrow sand spit situated at , at the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand. Known to the Māori as Tuhuroa, it runs eastwards from Cape Farewell, the island's northernmost point...
at the western entrance to Cook Strait
Cook Strait
Cook Strait is the strait between the North and South Islands of New Zealand. It connects the Tasman Sea on the west with the South Pacific Ocean on the east....
. This was not the shortest course - this would have required more complicated navigation to fly a great circle
Great-circle navigation
Great-circle navigation is the practice of navigating a vessel along a track that follows a great circle. A great circle track is the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a planetary body, assuming a perfect spherical model.-Methods:In order to construct a great circle track,...
course - but the difference over the trans-Tasman flight was not prohibitive. Unexpected winds could cause a drift north or south of the intended course, making an exact landfall unlikely, but the Aotearoa carried no flight instruments
Flight instruments
Flight instruments are the instruments in the cockpit of an aircraft that provide the pilot with information about the flight situation of that aircraft, such as height, speed and altitude...
that could detect or compensate for such a drift. The radio had no navigational capability or function.
Arrangements for radio contact were for the aircraft to send out a continuous tone for five minutes every quarter of an hour, as the pilots had only a rudimentary knowledge of Morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
. This schedule was not adhered to, for the tone was heard for longer periods at irregular intervals. At 1722 NZ time, when the aircraft had been just over 12 hours in the air, and should have been within about 200 miles of New Zealand, signals from the Aotearoa abruptly ceased.
The wait
During the day excitement mounted in New Zealand and by early evening an estimated 10,000 people had arrived at Trentham to greet the airmen, including Dorothy Moncrieff and Laura Hood, the aviator’s wives.With the cessation of radio signals hopefulness gave way to anxiety, although the relatively poor reliability of airborne radio at the time did not necessarily mean that loss of signal equalled the loss of the aircraft. Searchlights were used to illuminate the clouds that were building up, and rockets were still being sent up at 0140 on the 11th, but the crowd and the aviator’s wives waited in vain. Moncrieff, Hood, and the Aotearoa were never seen or heard from again.
Sightings and the searches
There were many reports of supposed sightings of the aircraft during the evening and night of the 10th – 11th, of varying degrees of credibility. Most claimed to see the lights of the Aotearoa, although Kight affirmed the aircraft carried no navigation lightNavigation light
A navigation light is a colored source of illumination on an aircraft, spacecraft, or waterborne vessel, used to signal a craft's position, heading, and status...
s or flares
Flare (pyrotechnic)
A flare, also sometimes called a fusee, is a type of pyrotechnic that produces a brilliant light or intense heat without an explosion. Flares are used for signalling, illumination, or defensive countermeasures in civilian and military applications...
, and the only source of light apart from the aircraft’s exhaust was a small pocket torch that would not be seen at any distance. Some of the most apparently reliable sightings could be interpreted as the Aotearoa making landfall north of the intended track near Cape Egmont
Cape Egmont
Cape Egmont is the westernmost point of Taranaki, on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is located close to the volcanic cone of Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont....
, tracking along the Southern Taranaki coast, and then cutting across the South Taranaki Bight
South Taranaki Bight
The South Taranaki Bight is the name given to the large bay which extends south and east from the south coast of Taranaki in New Zealand's North Island. With more symmetry than poetry or originality, it is matched by the North Taranaki Bight to the north of Cape Egmont.The size of the bight...
to the coast near Paekakariki
Paekakariki
Paekakariki is a town in the Kapiti Coast District in the south-western North Island of New Zealand. It is 22 km north of Porirua and 45 km north-east of Wellington, the nation's capital city....
, intending to round Cape Terawhiti
Cape Terawhiti
Cape Terawhiti is the southwesternmost point of the North Island of New Zealand.The cape is located 16 kilometres to the west of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand...
and fly up Wellington Harbour
Wellington Harbour
Wellington Harbour is the large natural harbour at the southern tip of New Zealand's North Island. New Zealand's capital, Wellington, is on the western side of Wellington Harbour. The harbour was officially named Port Nicholson until it assumed its current name in the 1980s.In Māori the harbour is...
to the Hutt Valley. This would be a perfectly valid scenario had the aircraft been drifted north of its intended trans-tasman course.
Starting on 11 January, air, sea and land searches were carried out for many days in the hope of finding the aviators alive at sea, or on a remote beach, or at least of finding some wreckage that might indicate their fate. Nothing was found at the time. Many land searches have been made since then, mostly centering on Mt Stokes, at 1203m the highest point in the rugged bush-clad Marlborough Sounds
Marlborough Sounds
The Marlborough Sounds are an extensive network of sea-drowned valleys created by a combination of land subsidence and rising sea levels at the north of the South Island of New Zealand...
area, based on a number of supposed sightings in the area. No evidence has ever been found of any wreckage of the Aotearoa, or any other trace of the aviators.
The occurrence of supposed sightings around the time and approximate place of an expected arrival mirrored generally similar events after the first attempted Paris-New York flight by Nungesser and Coli
The White Bird
The White Bird was a French biplane which disappeared in 1927, during an attempt to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight between Paris and New York...
in May 1927, where many reports of sightings were made in North America, and land searches are still being carried out from time to time.
Legacy
The Aotearoa became New Zealand's first aviation mystery as the first aircraft to go missing in or near New Zealand. While other aircraft had crashed, until Moncrieff and Hood’s flight, none were lost without trace. In 1931 the Masterton aerodrome was renamed ‘Hood AerodromeHood Aerodrome
Hood Aerodrome is an aerodrome, located in southern urban area of Masterton, New Zealand. The aerodrome was named after George Hood, a pioneer Masterton aviator who died trying to make the first Trans-Tasman crossing in 1928....
’, the name it still bears today. A number of streets throughout New Zealand are named ‘Moncrieff’ or ‘Hood’ as memorials to the pioneers.
The first successful flight
On 11 September 1928 Australians Charles Kingsford SmithCharles Kingsford Smith
Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith MC, AFC , often called by his nickname Smithy, was an early Australian aviator. In 1928, he earned global fame when he made the first trans-Pacific flight from the United States to Australia...
and Charles Ulm
Charles Ulm
Charles Thomas Philippe Ulm AFC was a pioneer Australian aviator.-World War I:Ulm joined the AIF in September 1914, lying about his name and age to get in. He fought and was wounded at Gallipoli in 1915, and on the Western Front in 1918.Charles Ulm was married twice. In 1919 he married Isabel...
achieved what Hood and Moncrieff had died attempting, when they landed the Southern Cross
Southern Cross (aircraft)
Southern Cross is the name of the Fokker F.VIIb/3m trimotor monoplane which in 1928 was flown by Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew in the first ever trans-Pacific flight, from the mainland United States to Australia, about ....
at Wigram, Christchurch.