Kellett XR-3. 5 January Renowned aviator Amy Johnson takes off from an overnight stopover at RAF Squire's Gate near Blackpool in Airspeed Oxford V3540 on an Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) delivery flight from RAF Prestwick, Scotland to RAF Kidlington, in Oxfordshire. In bad weather Johnson becomes lost and was next seen more than three hours later over the Thames Estuary. Johnson parachuted into the water, where the barrage balloon tender Hazlemere, spotting her descent, hurries to pick her up. By the time the vessel reaches Johnson she is exhausted and unable to grab the line thrown to her. An officer from the tender, Lt.Cmdr. Walter Fletcher, dives into the sea to help, but numbed by the cold Johnson sinks beneath the surface. Johnson's body is never recovered. Fletcher succumbs to the cold and also dies. Johnson had made headlines in 1930 when she had become the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. 7 January Saro Lerwick flying boat, L7262, of 209 Sqn is lost when pilot Flt. Lt. Spotswood is unable to take off near Stranraer, Scotland. After a long take off run, the hull strikes a floating obstacle and rapidly takes on water, sinks. Two crew are trapped and drown. 16 January Douglas B-18A Bolo, 37-523, of the 73d Bombardment Squadron (Medium), 17th Bombardment Group (Medium), departs McChord Field, Washington, at 1020 hrs., on a training flight to the Muroc bombing range in the Mojave Desert of California, with seven on board. When it fails to make a scheduled stop at McClellan Field, Sacramento, California, concern was raised that it was down, somewhere north of the California state line. "The most definite report came tonight [17 January] from B. M. Oyster, employment and personnel manager of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Co., who came personally to McChord field to relate the story. Oyster said a timber crew foreman reported that a big plane appeared directly over the heads of a startled logging crew, in the Toutle river area, out of a cloud bank and barely skimmed the tops of 200-foot high trees." Before they could recover from their surprise or definitely identify the plane, it disappeared into another cloud bank. "Oyster informed officers that the Toutle river forks near the point, and continued flight up either bank would have meant disaster at the level at which the plane was last seen, flying southward. One fork leads towards Mount