frenchman to search for "white bird" atlantic crossing try

[tom d. friedman]

from the wall street journal 9/6/11 front page........ a french researcher has mounted a search for ww1 french fighter ace / post war aviation personality charles nungesser & co - pilot navigator francois coli's remains as well as their

aircraft L' OISEAU BLANC, OR " WHITE BIRD" in the contest attempt for the orteig prize of the 1st aviator to fly the atlantic non stop new york to paris unrefueled. the team vanished with out a trace, charles lindbergh made it..... well.......... the rest is aviation history. 84 years later, researcher frenchman bernard decr'e, on his own quest for whitebird & it's mystery of loss made a shocking discovery. last year decre's discovery of an old u.s. coast guard telegram that aircraft parts were found re-opened the mystery up. parts were sighted. the french crew might have made it before lindy after flying over newfoundland before - crash landing off the canadian coast. i'm sure colonel robb's ears are perking up!! anyway time will tell!!~!

[Tiger Tim]

I'm no underwater archaeologist but would there be anything left to find of l'Oiseau Blanc?

-Tim

[robkamm]

there have been rumors of it being up in Maine . I read that a logging company pulled out a large engine from the woods(location unknown of course) in the 1950s. all great rumors. I always wondered what happened. hope he finds it.

[Jiggersfromsphilly]

Didn't a certain group that's name starts with a T, try and do this about 20 years ago ?

[tom d. friedman]

Didn't a certain group that's name starts with a T, try and do this about 20 years ago ?

probably, but the the public relations hype wasn't the same!! so few know of the white bird attempt, & so few give curmudgeon colonel robb credit for his research.

[JohnB]

Clive Cussler's group also looked for it a couple of times...under the assumption that it crashed in Maine. They found nothing.

[daveymac82c]

As for rumours...

I have heard of accounts from Newfoundland having heard an airplane flying above/in the clouds around the same time that the whitebird would have made it to the coastline. The wreckage could be in Newfoundland.

Peace,

David M

[Stephan Wilkinson]

Yes, Tighar searched extensively for l'Oiseau Blanc--I know because I was one of the searchers, cost me a broken wrist when I got bucked off a water tanker being towed down a rutted dirt road near Machias, Maine--and I am amused that the nonachievers still take cheap shots at the organization.

[Stephan Wilkinson]

Just got my new issue of "Tighar Tracks," the group's quarterly publication.

Turns out that neither the Frenchman nor the Wall Street Journal (see the first post) bothered to plot the lat/long coordinates of the "white wings" found, as mentioned in the "Coast Guard telegram." The location is actually off Norfolk, Virginia, about a thousand miles upstream (Gulf Stream) from the supposed crash site off Newfoundland. How the wreckage of l'Oiseau Blanc would have made it that far, -against- the Gulf Stream, is a mystery.

Also, it wasn't a Coast Guard telegram at all, it was simply a transcription of a radio message USCG Norfolk received from someone named "Rasmussen," assumedly a radio operator on a ship offshore. The CG simply routinely typed up the message, and the discovery, if there was one, had nothing to do with the Coast Guard.

So what we're left with is a loony Frenchman chasing down what he imagines to have been Nungesser and Coli's airplane because some airplane with white wings apparently went into the ocean near Virginia and some of the wreckage was spotted by a tramp freighter. Assuming they were "white wings," that is, and not some miscellaneous storm flotsam.

[Fearless Tower]

FWIW, the rumors of the plane coming down in Maine were based on at least one or two cases of hunters that had stumbled across wreckage in the forest. I recall reading their accounts back in the 80's.....I don't remember the exact details, but the accounts seemed to be pretty compelling. The problem was that they could not find the wreckage again. If you have ever spent any time in Maine, that is actually VERY believable.

If the stories were true and it did crash in Maine, I seriously doubt that anyone will ever find it again. If they do, it will be pure luck and would require a GPS to mark the position so you could go back to it.

[Stephan Wilkinson]

Tell me about it. I spent many hours hiking through Maine woods looking for that darn airplane, and I was SURE that it would be just over the next ridge or treeline.

Mini-factoid: The entire Oiseau Blanc thing was set off by an article that was published in a small magazine, Yankee, in the 1970s. The article was written by the guy who happened to have played Leatherman in the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" film.

[Fearless Tower]

Tell me about it. I spent many hours hiking through Maine woods looking for that darn airplane, and I was SURE that it would be just over the next ridge or treeline.

I went to college and used to be a volunteer firefighter in a small town in ME. Only reason I didn't get lost on a regular basis was because we were on a narrow peninsula with water on 3 sides.....otherwise, I'd probably still be stuck in that state!

[APG85]

Interesting picture of The White Bird's landing gear in a french aviation museum. The gear was dropped just after take-off to lighten the load and for streamlining. I didn't realize it still existed...

http://www.museeairespace.fr/index.php?id=407