Originally Posted by BusyLittleShop
Originally Posted by Quattro Pete
Does this happen often?
Ever hear of "Wrong Way" Corrigan???
In July 1938, Corrigan piloted the single-engine plane nonstop from
California to New York. Although the transcontinental flight was far
from unprecedented, Corrigan received national attention simply
because the press was amazed that his rattletrap aircraft had survived
the journey.
Almost immediately after arriving in New York, he filed plans for a
transatlantic flight, but aviation authorities deemed it a suicide
flight, and he was promptly denied. Instead, they would allow Corrigan
to fly back to the West Coast, and on July 17 he took off from Floyd
Bennett field, ostentatiously pointed west. However, a few minutes
later, he made a 180-degree turn and vanished into a cloudbank to the
puzzlement of a few onlookers.
Twenty-eight hours later, Corrigan landed his plane in Dublin,
Ireland, stepped out of his plane, and exclaimed, "Just got in from
New York. Where am I?" He claimed that he lost his direction in the
clouds and that his compass had malfunctioned. The authorities didn't
buy the story and suspended his license, but Corrigan stuck to it to
the amusement of the public on both sides of the Atlantic. By the time
"Wrong Way" Corrigan and his crated plane returned to New York by
ship, his license suspension had been lifted, he was a national
celebrity, and a mob of autograph seekers met him on the gangway.
That's freakin' hilarious!