First Balloon Across the Atlantic
Next: August 17, 2027
Three friends, one balloon, an ocean.
The story
Where it comes from
This Story marks 17 August 1978, when the helium balloon Double Eagle II came down in a wheat field near Miserey in France, about 60 miles north-west of Paris, completing the first balloon crossing of the Atlantic. Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman, all from Albuquerque in New Mexico, had lifted off from Presque Isle, Maine, on the evening of 11 August, and flew some 3,100 miles in 137 hours and 6 minutes. Seventeen earlier attempts had failed, and Abruzzo and Anderson had tried once before, in 1977.
How it's celebrated
There is no formal observance, but the flight is remembered by balloonists and aviation museums. The crew's gondola, The Spirit of Albuquerque, is on display at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. It is a good day to look up, watch the clouds drift and think about where the wind might carry you.
Did you know
- Officially the crossing was achieved at 10.02 pm on 16 August, when the balloon passed over the coast of Ireland.
- The crew hoped to land at Le Bourget, where Charles Lindbergh had landed in 1927, but with ballast low and daylight fading they came down in Normandy, where crowds who had followed the balloon soon surrounded them.
- The gondola carried a twin-hulled catamaran in case of a landing at sea, and Newman brought a hang-glider that had to be cast off to lighten the load.
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