L'Oiseau Blanc (; English: The White Bird) was a French Levasseur PL.8 biplane that disappeared in 1927 during an attempt to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight between Paris and New York City to compete for the Orteig Prize. French World War I aviation heroes Charles Nungesser (third highest French ace with 43 air combat victories during World War I) and François Coli took off from Paris on 8 May 1927 and were last seen over Ireland. Less than two weeks later, Charles Lindbergh flew New York–Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis and claimed the prize.
The disappearance of L'Oiseau Blanc is considered one of the great mysteries in the history of aviation. Many rumors circulated about the fate of the aircraft and crew, with mainstream opinion at the time being that it was probably lost in a squall over the Atlantic. Investigations starting in the 1980s suggest that it probably reached Newfoundland and may have crashed in Maine.
The disappearance of Nungesser and Coli has an extensive legacy and is referred to in many films and museums. A street in Paris is named after them and a commemorative postage stamp was issued in 1967. A statue at the Paris Le Bourget Airport honors the flight and there is a memorial on the cliffs of Étretat, where their aircraft was last seen in France.
Background In 1919, New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig offered the $25,000 Orteig Prize (approximately ) to the first aviators to make a non-stop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris in the next five years.Schneider, Keith. "Win fabulous prizes, all in the name of innovation." The New York Times, 12 November 2007. No one won the prize, so he renewed the offer in 1924. At that point, aviation technology was more advanced and many people were working toward winning it.Stoff 2000, pp. 24–25. Most were attempting to fly from New York to Paris, but a number of French aviators planned to fly from Paris to New York.
François Coli, age 45, was a World War I veteran and recipient of the French Legion of Honor, who had been making record-breaking flights around the Mediterranean Sea. He also had been planning a transatlantic flight since 1923.McDonaugh 1966, p. 27. 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 35-year-old Charles Nungesser, a highly experienced flying ace with over 40 victories, third highest among the French.O'Mara, Richard. "Surviving Amelia." The Sun, 10 January 1999."Curtain Call." Tighar Tracks (TIGHAR), Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 1987. Retrieved: 17 January 2009. He had been planning a solo crossing to win the Orteig Prize, but designer Pierre Levasseur insisted that he consider Coli as his navigator in a new two-place variant of the Levasseur PL.4.
Design and development At the Pierre Levasseur Company in Paris, Nungesser and Coli, working closely with Chief Engineer Émile Farret and production manager Albert Longelot, assisted in the design of the new Levasseur PL.8 biplane. Based on the Levasseur PL.4 developed for the Aéronavale to operate from the French aircraft carrier Béarn, the PL.8 was a conventional, single-bay, wood and fabric-covered biplane that carried a crew of two in a side-by-side, open cockpit.
Major modifications included the reinforcement of the plywood fuselage, and removing two of the forward cockpits so the main cockpit could be widened to allow Nungesser and Coli to sit side by side. The wingspan was also increased to approximately . Two additional fuel tanks were mounted aft of the firewall, meaning the PL.8's three fuel tanks held a total of of gasoline.McDonaugh 1966, p. 29.
The PL.8 also incorporated several safety features in case of ditching at sea. Apart from small floats attached directly to the undersides of the lower wing, the main units of the fixed, tailskid undercarriage could be jettisoned on takeoff, in order to reduce the aircraft's weight. The underside of the fuselage was given a boat-like shape and made watertight for a water landing. Nungesser and Coli's plan was to make a water landing in New York, in front of the Statue of Liberty.
A single W-12 Lorraine-Dietrich engine was used, with the cylinders set in three banks angled 60° 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.Godspeed, Charles and Francois. "The Secret of The White Bird." aero-news.net, 9 May 2006. Retrieved: 16 January 2009.
The aircraft, christened L'Oiseau Blanc, was painted white, and had the French tricolor markings, with Nungesser's personal World War I flying ace logo: a skull and crossbones, candles and a coffin, on a black heart, painted on the fuselage.Wiggens, Bill. "Mystery of the White Bird." Air Classics, July 1999. The biplane carried no radio and relied only on celestial navigation, a specialty of Coli from his previous flights around the Mediterranean.
In 1928, a second PL-8, and equipped with a Hispano-Suiza 12M, 375 kW (500 hp) engine, was built.
Operational history In April 1927, the PL.8-01 was shipped from the factory for Nungesser to begin a series of proving tests to determine aircraft performance. Most of the flights were conducted around Villacoublay and Chartres. Although full fuel loads were never carried, during one flight, it reached a speed of and flight elevation of .
The evaluations proceeded successfully through the flight envelope without major changes required to the basic design. The only incident of note was a fire that broke out in the hangar where the PL.8-01 had been stored. Scorched fabric on the top wing was the result with effective repairs carried out shortly after. On 7 May 1927, after the tests were complete, the aircraft was prepared for its record flight, flying from Villacoublay to Le Bourget Field.McDonaugh 1966, p. 30.
Transatlantic attempt Nungesser and Coli took off at 5:17 a.m., 8 May 1927 from Le Bourget Field in Paris, heading for New York.Berg 1999, p. 105. Their PL.8-01 weighed on takeoff, extremely heavy for a single-engined aircraft, barely clearing a line of trees at the end of the field.McDonough 1966, p. 31. Gathering an escort of French fighter aircraft, Nungesser and Coli turned back as planned, and at low altitude, immediately jettisoned the main undercarriage.
The intended flight path was a great circle route, which would have taken them across the English Channel, over the southwestern part of England and Ireland, across the Atlantic to Newfoundland, then south over Nova Scotia, to Boston, and finally to a water landing in New York.Farrell, John Aloysius. "Unraveling the mystery of White Bird's flight." The Boston Globe, 8 March 1987.Will 2008, pp. 21–22.
Once in the air, the biplane was escorted to the French coast by four military aircraft led by French Air Force Captain Venson, and sighted from the coastal town of Étretat. A sighting was made by the commanding officer of the British submarine , who recorded the note in his log, that he observed a biplane at 300 m altitude, 20 nautical miles southwest of the tip of Needles on the Isle of Wight. In Ireland, an aircraft overhead was reported by a resident of the town of Dungarvan and a Catholic priest reported a sighting over the village of Carrigaholt, then no further verified reports were made.Clayton, John. "The White Bird: Tracking an aviation mystery to NH." New Hampshire Sunday News, 28 May 2006.
Crowds of people gathered in New York to witness the historic arrival, with tens of thousands of people crowding Battery Park in Manhattan to have a good view of the Statue of Liberty, where the aircraft was scheduled to touch down. Rumors circulated that L'Oiseau Blanc had been sighted along its route, in Newfoundland, or over Long Island. In France, some newspapers even reported that Nungesser and Coli had arrived safely in New York, evoking a wave of French patriotism. L'Oiseau Blanc had been carrying a sizable load of fuel, , which would have given them approximately 42 hours of flight time. After this time had passed, with no word as to the aircraft's fate, it was realized that the aircraft had been lost.Mosley 2000, p. 86. In France, the public was scandalized by the newspapers such as La Presse, which had printed false reports about the aircraft's arrival, and outrage was generated against the companies involved, with demonstrations in the streets.Wohl 2007, p. 10.
In the immediate aftermath of their disappearance, an international search was launched to find Nungesser and Coli. Aviation Digest sponsored a well-known pilot, Floyd Bennett, to search the area between New York and Newfoundland for nine days. The Canadian government search and rescue organizations also sent out two search aircraft, of which one crashed. Searchers including the French Navy, the United States Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy scoured the route, including Labrador, the northeast coast of the U.S. and the area around the St. Lawrence River. With no sign of the aircraft, further search efforts were abandoned.
Twelve days after Nungesser and Coli's departure, Charles Lindbergh, flying solo in the Spirit of Saint Louis, took off from New York on his own famous journey. After a flight of 33 hours, 30 minutes, he received a hero's welcome when he arrived in Paris, even as the French mourned the loss of Nungesser and Coli.
Mystery The mainstream view was that L'Oiseau Blanc crashed over the Atlantic due to a squall. Nonetheless, 12 witnesses in Newfoundland and Maine claimed to have heard the aircraft as it passed overhead. Residents at Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, reported sighting a white aircraft circling in haze or fog late on 9 May 1927. There were no aircraft on the island and no overflights taking place, and the local newspapers highlighted a "mystery" aircraft. If these sightings were of L'Oiseau Blanc, it would indicate that the flight was far behind schedule, as they would have been in the 40th hour of flight. This delay could be explained, however, by the fact that the aircraft was flying against the prevailing weather pattern. Fishermen off the coast of Newfoundland reported that the weather had turned cold and foul, which might have caused the delay. In May 1927, the United States Coast Guard found an airplane wing in Napeague Bay at Fort Pond Bay, Long Island Sound;Meridan Daily Journal June 9, 1927 -it is unknown if the wreckage was from the L'Oiseau Blanc or from the missing aircraft on Mansell James who had disappeared in 1919 aircraft wreckage was seen in August 1927, 200 miles off the New York Coast.
There were many rumors concerning the aircraft's disappearance, including a theory that the aviators had been shot down by rum-runners aboard the rum boat AmistadJackson, Joe, "Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic", Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2012, Library of Congress card number 2011046068, , page 257. as well as the belief that Nungesser and Coli were living with indigenous peoples in Canada. In 1930, claims circulated that L'Oiseau Blancs engine had been located in Maine, but nothing was confirmed. Stories emerged in 1948 from reports that caribou hunters and fur trappers had found aircraft wreckage in Great Gull Pond in Newfoundland.