The German officers, Baron von Hiinefeld and Captain Kohl, and
Major Fitzmaurice of the Free State Air Force, have fairly earned all the congratulations they have received on the first successful flight across the Atlantic from east to west. They got through with a very small margin in hand. In the latter part of their journey they ran into a gale of wind and blinding sleet and snow. Ice formed on the wings of the ' Bremen ' ; their lights failed ; they could not see their instruments ; they did not know in what direction they were flying ; and they were only a very short distance above the tremendous seas that were breaking when they found that their fuel would last for only a few miles more. In this terrible predicament they suddenly sighted the lighthouse on Greenly Island, five hundred miles north of their proposed landing place. They were able to land on frozen water with some slight injury to the aeroplane. This experience, together with the terrible loss of life from past attempts, suggests that an aeroplane that is without wireless and without enough buoyancy for floating can cross from east to west only if luck goes with it. • * * *
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