Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan, the Curtiss Robin, and the Atlantic Crossing Nobody Was Supposed to Know About

Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan flew from New York to Ireland on July 17, 1938, without permission, in a heavily modified 1929 Curtiss Robin he had purchased for $310. He claimed it was a navigational error. Nobody believed him. He maintained that story until his death in December 1995, at age 88.

From the Factory Floor to the Atlantic

Corrigan’s connection to transatlantic flight began before he ever left the ground. Born in Galveston, Texas, in 1907, he was working as a riveter at Ryan Airlines in San Diego in 1927 when the shop received a rush order: build an airplane for a young mail pilot named Charles Lindbergh. The twenty-year-old Corrigan helped assemble what would become the Spirit of St. Louis.

He earned his pilot’s certificate that same year - the same year Lindbergh landed in Paris. For a man who had physically built the machine that crossed the Atlantic, that parallel carried enormous weight.

Why the Government Kept Saying No

Corrigan spent eleven years applying for approval to fly the Atlantic. The Bureau of Air Commerce - the regulatory body that preceded the FAA - denied him every time. Their objections were grounded in legitimate concerns: the airplane was old, the modifications were unconventional, there was no radio, and forward visibility was severely compromised by auxiliary fuel tanks that blocked the entire front of the cabin.

The objections were not entirely unreasonable. The North Atlantic had already claimed pilots with more funding and better equipment.

The $310 Airplane That Crossed an Ocean

In 1935, Corrigan found the airplane he believed could do it: a worn 1929 Curtiss Robin, a high-wing cabin monoplane in rough condition. He paid $310 for it.

What followed was years of methodical modification. He replaced the original engine with a Wright nine-cylinder radial. He added fuel tanks, enlarged the oil tank, and reinforced the wing structure. By the time he was done, the cabin was so packed with auxiliary fuel that the only usable view was out the side windows.

The airplane looked like what it was - a working machine rebuilt by a man who understood every rivet. It was not glamorous. It was functional.

How the 1938 Crossing Actually Happened

In spring 1938, Corrigan took a different approach. Rather than applying again for an Atlantic crossing, he applied for a transcontinental flight: New York to Long Beach, California. The Bureau of Air Commerce approved it.

He flew to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. He filed a flight plan listing Long Beach, California as his destination. On the morning of July 17, 1938, at approximately 5:00 a.m., he took off.

Twenty-eight hours and thirteen minutes later, he landed at Baldonnel Aerodrome, outside Dublin, Ireland.

When the ground crew approached, Corrigan leaned out the window and said, approximately: “I just came from New York. Where am I?”

The Official Explanation

Corrigan’s account was straightforward: shortly after takeoff, he became disoriented in the clouds, checked his compass, noted he was heading east, and concluded something was off - but by the time he had sorted it out, he was committed to the heading and the weather was not cooperating. He cited a potentially miscalibrated liquid compass and heavy overcast that prevented celestial navigation.

He also stated that when he finally descended through the clouds and saw water, he initially assumed he was looking at the Gulf of Mexico.

From New York. Flying west.

The Government’s Response

The Bureau of Air Commerce suspended his pilot certificate for fourteen days for deviating from his approved flight plan. That was the full extent of the official consequence for crossing the Atlantic Ocean without authorization.

The American public had a different reaction entirely.

The Parade and the Nickname

Corrigan returned from Ireland by ocean liner. When his ship docked in New York, the city staged a ticker-tape parade along Broadway. Estimates placed the crowd at over one million people. He received a reception at City Hall, met the mayor, and was invited to the White House.

The nickname “Wrong Way” Corrigan appeared immediately and permanently. He accepted it without objection. He wrote a book - That’s My Story, published in 1938 - appeared in a film about his flight, and gave countless interviews over the following decades.

At every opportunity, he maintained with complete composure that he had simply made a navigational error and the whole thing was a tremendous embarrassment.

He never broke from that position. Not once, in fifty-seven years.

What the Curtiss Robin Actually Accomplished

Whatever the true navigational story, the aeronautical achievement is not in dispute. A 1929 Curtiss Robin - modified by one man over several years, carrying no radio, with severely limited forward visibility - completed a solo transatlantic crossing in under thirty hours.

The same ocean that had defeated many better-funded, better-equipped expeditions. Without any support infrastructure. Flown by a mechanic-pilot who had studied the route, calculated the fuel loads, and read every report from pilots who had not survived the attempt.

The airplane, registration NX293Y, is now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., not far from other aircraft that changed the world.

Why Corrigan’s Story Endures

The Corrigan narrative is sometimes treated as a charming footnote to the Golden Age of Aviation. It deserves more than that.

Corrigan was not a wealthy adventurer with corporate sponsors. He was a working pilot and mechanic who identified a goal at age twenty, pursued it through eleven years of regulatory rejection, and executed it with meticulous preparation. His “wrong way” flight was not impulsive. It was the product of a decade of work that the approval process had failed to recognize.

The fourteen-day suspension he received underscores the absurdity of the situation: the regulatory system that repeatedly denied him permission ultimately responded to his unauthorized Atlantic crossing with less consequence than a traffic citation.

And the poker face. Fifty-seven years of maintaining a story that no reasonable person believed, without a single slip, in interviews, in his memoir, in his later years when there was nothing left to lose by telling the truth. He carried it to his grave in December 1995.

That kind of composure is its own form of aviation professionalism.

Key Takeaways

• Corrigan helped build the Spirit of St. Louis at age 20 in 1927, the same year Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, which became the defining motivation of his flying career.
• He purchased a 1929 Curtiss Robin for $310 in 1935 and spent years modifying it for an Atlantic crossing while facing repeated government rejection.
• On July 17, 1938, he filed a flight plan for California, took off from Floyd Bennett Field, and landed 28 hours and 13 minutes later in Dublin, Ireland.
• The Bureau of Air Commerce’s punishment was a 14-day certificate suspension; the public’s response was a ticker-tape parade with over one million spectators.
• His Curtiss Robin (NX293Y) is now in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, a permanent record of what one pilot accomplished with a cheap airplane, years of preparation, and the decision to stop waiting for permission.