Douglas Corrigan, the Curtiss Robin He Bought for Three Hundred Twenty-Five Dollars, and the Wrong-Way Atlantic Crossing That Nobody Could Ever Prove Was on Purpose

On July 17, 1938, a young pilot named Douglas Corrigan climbed into a battered Curtiss Robin monoplane at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, filed a flight plan for Los Angeles, and took off just before five in the morning. Twenty-eight hours and thirteen minutes later, he landed at Baldonnel Aerodrome outside Dublin, Ireland. He told customs officials he must have “flown the wrong way.” Nobody believed him. Nobody could prove otherwise.

Who Was Douglas Corrigan Before the Flight?

Corrigan was not a celebrity or a wealthy adventurer. He was a California mechanic who had fallen into aviation during the Depression, willing to work for almost nothing in exchange for proximity to airplanes. In 1927, at 20 years old, he was a shop-floor mechanic at Ryan Airlines in San Diego when Charles Lindbergh’s backers assembled the Spirit of St. Louis. Corrigan helped rivet together the aircraft that would make the first solo nonstop transatlantic crossing in history. He watched Lindbergh take off. He decided he wanted to do the same thing.

The $325 Airplane That Crossed the Atlantic

Corrigan’s instrument for this ambition was a 1929 Curtiss Robin monoplane with an old OX-5 engine, purchased for $325. The Robin had been a reasonable enclosed-cabin touring aircraft in the late 1920s. By the time it came to Corrigan, it was something else entirely.

The fuselage was patched and re-patched. The engine leaked oil. The cockpit floor had rusted through, covered with a tin plate - look down through the gap and you could see the ground below. Corrigan spent years modifying the aircraft, adding fuel tanks throughout the fuselage and a larger nose tank until the Robin carried approximately 320 gallons of fuel. At cruise, it burned around 8 gallons per hour. He had done the math.

Three Rejections and a Patient Man

The authorities had done the math too. Between 1935 and 1938, Corrigan applied three separate times to the Bureau of Air Commerce for permission to fly the Atlantic. Three times, they refused. His airplane was not airworthy for a transatlantic crossing. His instruments were inadequate. His compass was a used, nine-dollar unit of questionable accuracy. Each application was denied.

Corrigan accepted each refusal politely, went home, and kept working on the airplane.

The Morning of July 17, 1938

In the summer of 1938, Corrigan flew the Robin from California to New York and landed at Floyd Bennett Field. He spent several days there, remembered by local pilots and mechanics as a quiet, cheerful man who passed most of his time tinkering. He filed paperwork for a return flight to Los Angeles, topped off the tanks, and spent $16 on gasoline and oil. On the morning of July 17, he climbed into the cockpit, fired up the OX-5, and taxied out.

The Robin lifted off into a low overcast and disappeared.

The Official Story: A Compass Gone Wrong

According to Corrigan’s account - given to Irish customs, to the American consul, to the Civil Aeronautics Authority, and to reporters for the rest of his life - this is what happened.

Shortly after takeoff, he entered clouds and flew on instruments. The compass heading seemed off, but he attributed it to magnetic deviation from the extra fuel tanks. He flew through clouds and rain for most of the night. At dawn he broke out over open ocean and assumed he was looking at the Pacific. He kept flying.

After 28 hours and 13 minutes, he descended through low clouds and saw green fields, then a city, then an aerodrome. He landed. The customs inspector asked where he had come from. New York, Corrigan said. The inspector pointed back the way he had come: New York was in that direction. Corrigan looked at his compass. “I must have flown the wrong way.”

Why America Made Him a Folk Hero

The newspapers named him “Wrong Way Corrigan” within hours. 1938 was a grinding year. The Depression had not loosened its hold. Europe was darkening toward another war. Into that atmosphere walked a lanky California mechanic who had apparently crossed the Atlantic in a patched-up antique by mistake and responded with a shrug.

America adored him. He received a ticker-tape parade in New York - some accounts recorded more confetti than Lindbergh’s own reception. He wrote a memoir titled That’s My Story. He appeared in a film comedy playing himself. He returned to California and was mobbed everywhere he went.

The Punishment That Had Already Expired

The Civil Aeronautics Authority, which had replaced the Bureau of Air Commerce, faced a genuine dilemma. They could not prove the flight was intentional. They could not ignore it entirely. Their response: a 14-day suspension of his pilot certificate, backdated to the date of the flight.

By the time the paperwork was processed, the suspension had already run out.

Did He Do It on Purpose?

The case for yes is substantial. The extra tanks he spent years installing. The course corrections required to hold a north-easterly heading for 28 consecutive hours. And the destination itself - not Iceland, not the Scottish coast, not the French shoreline, but Dublin, Ireland, which sits almost exactly where a deliberate New York departure aimed at Ireland would arrive.

Corrigan never acknowledged it. He lived to age 88, and through every interview and every reporter’s pressure, he gave the same easy smile and the same compass story. He never changed a word of it.

What the Flight Actually Represents

Corrigan’s crossing belongs to a longer tradition. The Wright brothers were not authorized to fly at Kitty Hawk. Lindbergh flew with borrowed instruments. The whole arc of aviation history runs through people who were told the machine wasn’t ready, the paperwork wasn’t in order, the conditions were wrong - and who went ahead anyway and are remembered because they did.

Whether Corrigan’s flight was an accident or a calculated plan executed behind a disarming smile, the effect was the same: a reminder, in a year that badly needed one, that the spirit which built aviation in the first place was still alive.

The Airplane Today

The Curtiss Robin that made the crossing still exists. It passed through decades of storage before arriving at the Planes of Fame museum in Chino, California and later other locations. The patched fuselage, improvised fuel tanks, and battered OX-5 engine are all visible. It looks exactly like what it is: a machine that should never have made it, built by a man who smiled and said it was all a mistake.

Three hundred twenty-five dollars. A nine-dollar compass. Sixteen dollars of gasoline.

Dublin, Ireland.

Key Takeaways

Douglas Corrigan departed Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn on July 17, 1938, filed a flight plan for Los Angeles, and landed in Dublin, Ireland 28 hours and 13 minutes later.
His aircraft, a 1929 Curtiss Robin, cost $325 and was modified to carry approximately 320 gallons of fuel; his compass cost $9.
The Bureau of Air Commerce denied his Atlantic crossing applications three separate times between 1935 and 1938.
His punishment - a 14-day certificate suspension - was backdated to the date of the flight and had already expired before the paperwork was complete.
Corrigan maintained his “wrong way” story until his death at age 88, and whether the crossing was accidental or meticulously planned was never officially resolved.