L'Oiseau Blanc

For other uses, see White Bird.

The White Bird (L'Oiseau Blanc or The White Dove) was a French biplane which disappeared in 1927, during an attempt to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight between Paris and New York. The aircraft was flown by French aviation warheroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli, who were attempting to win the $25,000 Orteig Prize for the flight, but the plane disappeared after its May 8 takeoff from Paris. Two weeks later, Charles Lindbergh successfully made the New York–Paris journey and claimed the prize, flying The Spirit of St. Louis.

The disappearance of The White Bird is considered one of the great mysteries in the history of aviation. Many rumors circulated about the fate of the plane and crew, with mainstream opinion being that the aircraft was probably lost in a squall over the Atlantic; however modern investigations imply that the plane may have reached Newfoundland or possibly crashed in Maine.

Background

In 1919, hotel owner Raymond Orteig had offered a $25,000 prize (equivalent to $1 million in 2007), the Orteig Prize, to the first crew to make a non-stop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris during the next five years. With no takers, he renewed the offer in 1924, and aviation technology had advanced enough at that point that many people tried for the prize. Most were attempting to fly from New York to Paris, but The White Bird was a French attempt, to travel from Paris to New York.

Francois Coli, a World War I veteran from the French Legion of Honor, had been making historic flights across and around the Mediterranean, and had been planning a transatlantic flight since 1923. His original plans were to fly with his wartime comrade Paul Tarascon, a flying ace with 12 victories from the war. They became interested in the Orteig Prize in 1925, but in late 1926 an accident destroyed their Potez 25 biplane. Tarascon was badly burned, and relinquished his place as pilot to another Legion of Honor veteran, Charles Nungesser, another highly experienced flying ace with over 40 victories, third highest among the French.

Construction

Nungesser and Coli participated in the design of a new biplane, a Levasseur PL.8, based on the PL.4 reconnaissance aircraft. Working with Chief Engineer Emile Farret and factory manager Albert Longelot at the Pierre Levasseur Company in Paris, they removed two of the forward cockpits and replaced them with fuel tanks, as well as adding more reinforcement of the fuselage, which was shaped to allow for a water landing. The fuel tanks were enormous, three tanks holding 1,056 gallons (4,025 liters) of gasoline. The main cockpit was widened to allow Nungesser and Coli to sit side by side. The wingspan was also increased to approximately 48 feet. A single Lorraine-Dietrich engine was used, W-12 450 horsepower, with the cylinders set in three banks spaced sixty degrees apart from one another, similar to the arrangement used in Napier engines. The engine was tested to ensure it would last the entire flight, and was run for over 40 hours while still in the Parisian factory.

The aircraft was painted white, had the French tricolor markings, and Nungesser's personal WWI flying ace logo: a skull and crossbones, candles, and a coffin, on a black heart. The biplane carried no radio (considered too unreliable to be worth the extra weight), and relied only on celestial navigation, a specialty of Francois Coli from his previous flights around the Mediterranean. The landing gear were designed to be jettisoned on takeoff, to reduce the plane's weight. As of 2008, they are the only confirmed part of the plane remaining. The gear is on display at the French Air and Space museum, the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget airport in Paris, the location from which The White Bird took off, and two weeks later, Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis landed.

Flight

Nungesser, at age 35, and Coli, 45, took off at 5:17 a.m. May 8, 1927 from Lebourget Field in Paris, heading for New York. The biplane weighed a ponderous 11,000 pounds on takeoff, a large amount for a single-engine plane. The intended flight path was a great circle route, which would have taken them past Ireland, to Newfoundland, then south over Boston, to their final destination of New York.

Carving on the wall of the museum in Etretat, France, honoring Nungesser and Coli

Once in the air, the biplane was escorted to the French coast by five military aircraft, and sighted from the coastal town of Etretat. Another sighting was made off Ireland by a British naval officer, who recorded the note in his log. There were no confirmed sightings after that.

Rumors circulated: Some newspapers even reported that Nungesser & Coli had arrived safely in New York, but the resulting scandal when the story was learned to be false, caused outrage against the newspapers which had been generating false reports.

After days had gone by with no word from the plane, hope faded. The plane had been carrying a sizable load of fuel, 1056 gallons, which would have given them approximately 42 hours of flight time. After this time had passed, with no word as to the plane's fate, it was realized that the plane had been lost.

An international search was launched. Aviation Digest sponsored Floyd Bennett to search the area between New York and Newfoundland for nine days. The Canadian Ministry of Lands and Forests also sent out two search planes (one of which crashed). But there was no sign of The White Bird.

Twelve days after Nungesser & Coli's departure, Charles Lindbergh, flying solo, left New York on his own famous journey aboard the Spirit of Saint Louis, receiving a hero's welcome when he arrived in Paris, even as the French mourned for the loss of Nungesser and Coli.

The mainstream view was that the Bird crashed over the Atlantic due to a squall.

Mystery

Statue honoring Nungesser, Coli, and Lindbergh, at Le Bourget Airport in Paris

Rumors continued: Perhaps The White Bird had been shot down by rum-runners with tommy guns; maybe Nungesser and Coli were still alive and living with Indians in Canada. A dozen witnesses in Newfoundland and Maine claimed to have heard the aircraft as it passed, though if these stories were true, they would have meant that the flight was far behind schedule, as they would have been in the 40th hour of flight. Fishermen from a few hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland reported that the weather had turned cold and foul, which might have explained the plane's delay.

In 1930, claims circulated that the Bird's engine had been located in Maine, but nothing was confirmed.

In 1984, the French government made an official investigation, concluding that it was possible that the plane had reached Newfoundland.

In 1989, the NBC television series Unsolved Mysteries advanced the theory that the two aviators made it across the ocean but crashed and perished in the woods of Maine. Nungesser's grandson, William Nungesser, made several trips to Maine to search, focusing his energies around the north slope of Round Lake Hills in Washington County, Maine.

Famed author Clive Cussler and his NUMA organization also attempted to solve the mystery, searching for the plane themselves on multiple visits.

Certain pieces were found which, though not conclusive, did imply that the Bird made it to the continent. Bits and pieces of struts were found, and wood similar to the kind used to build the biplane. Engine metal was also found near the town of Machias, that was not typical to the United States or Canada. Two local residents described a large metal object, a "really big motor" had been dragged out of the woods for salvage, along a path allegedly made by a logging operation.

Legacy

File:Etretat Monument.jpg

1963 monument to Nungesser and Coli's flight, on the cliffs of Etretat from where they were last seen in France

The disappearance of The White Bird has been called "the Everest of aviation mysteries". TIGHAR, The Interest Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, has called the Bird "History's Most Important Missing Airplane."

A monument was erected in Etretat in 1927, to mark the last place from which L'Oiseau Blanc was seen, but it was destroyed in 1942 by the occupying German army. A new 24-meter high monument was erected in 1963 atop one of the cliffs, the "Monument Nungesser et Coli". There is also a nearby museum.

In 1929, a monument was placed at Le Bourget airport. Honoring Lindbergh, Nungesser, and Coli, it is inscribed, "A ceux qui tentèrent et celui qui accomplit" (trans: "To those who tried and one who succeeded").

In 1967, forty years after the Bird's departure, the French issued a commemorative postage stamp, honoring Nungesser and Coli's attempt.

A street, "Rue Nungesser et Coli" is named after the aviators in Paris.

The fate of The White Bird is the subject of the 1999 made-for-TV Canadian film Restless Spirits, a children's film with the alternate title Dead Aviators, which uses the mystery of The White Bird's disappearance as the key plot device. A young girl, who struggles with her pilot father's death in a plane crash years before, visits her grandmother in Newfoundland. While there, she encounters the ghosts of Nungesser and Coli, whose restless spirits constantly relive their own unheralded 1927 crash in a nearby pond. The girl decides to help the pair move on to the afterlife by assisting them in rebuilding their airplane and completing their flight so they may be released and, by doing so, works through her own emotional distress over her father's test flight death.

The opening montage of the 2005 film Sahara, based on Cussler's novel, features a French newspaper article claiming the fictional version of NUMA found the airplane.

See also

• Levasseur PL.2

External links

• "L'Oiseau Blanc". check-six.com. Retrieved 2008-05-02.
• "Picture of The White Bird's landing gear, at the French air and space museum". mae.org. Retrieved 2008-05-04.