Wrong Way Corrigan and the transatlantic flight nobody was supposed to believe

Douglas Corrigan took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn on July 17, 1938, with a flight plan filed for Long Beach, California. Twenty-eight hours and thirteen minutes later, he landed in Dublin, Ireland. When asked what happened, he said he must have read his compass wrong. He maintained that story for the rest of his life.

Who Was Douglas Corrigan Before the Flight?

Corrigan was an aircraft mechanic with a direct connection to the most famous flight in history. In 1929, at just twenty years old, he worked at Ryan Airlines in San Diego, where he helped build Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. He worked on the fuel tanks, wing fittings, and engine mount. He watched Lindbergh depart for New York and then Paris, and it lit something in him.

He wanted to cross the Atlantic himself.

But this was the Depression. Corrigan had no wealthy backers, no sponsors, and no purpose-built aircraft. What he had was a 1929 Curtiss Robin monoplane he bought used for $310.

What Did Corrigan Do to the Curtiss Robin?

Corrigan spent years rebuilding the aircraft for an ocean crossing. He swapped in a Wright J-6-5, a 165-horsepower five-cylinder radial engine, and added extra fuel tanks — lots of them. By the time he finished, the airplane carried 320 gallons of gasoline in an airframe originally designed for roughly fifty.

The fuel tanks were stacked in the cabin directly in front of his face. He could not see forward through the windshield. On the ground, he leaned his head out the side window. In the air, he navigated by looking sideways and checking a compass mounted on the floor between his knees.

Fully loaded, the airplane weighed over 3,200 pounds. Its designed maximum gross weight was approximately 2,000 pounds — meaning Corrigan was flying more than a thousand pounds over gross in a fabric-covered monoplane with no radio, no lights, and a blocked windshield.

Why Didn’t the Government Stop Him?

Corrigan wasn’t reckless without trying the proper channels first. He applied to the Bureau of Air Commerce (the predecessor of the FAA) for permission to fly the Atlantic. Officials inspected his overloaded, patched-together Curtiss Robin and denied his request.

He applied again. Denied. A third time. Denied. A fourth time. Denied. The government was not going to authorize a transatlantic crossing in a $310 airplane.

They barely cleared him for the transcontinental flight from California to New York, requiring repairs first. So on July 17, with his flight plan reading “Long Beach, California,” Corrigan took off — and headed east.

California is west. Every pilot on the field watched him climb out over the ocean.

What Was the Transatlantic Flight Like?

The conditions were brutal. Corrigan flew through clouds and heavy fog, later claiming visibility was so poor he couldn’t see anything and simply held his heading on the floor-mounted compass.

The fuel tanks leaked. Gasoline pooled on the cabin floor around his feet, filling the cabin with avgas fumes for the entire flight. The cabin door wouldn’t stay shut — he held it closed with his left hand and flew with his right. At one point, he punched a hole through the cabin floor with a screwdriver to drain the gasoline sloshing around his ankles.

He had no radio and no navigation equipment beyond the compass. His provisions consisted of a few chocolate bars, fig cookies, and a canteen of water. He splashed water on his face to stay awake.

After 28 hours and 13 minutes, he descended through the clouds over green fields and landed at Baldonnel Aerodrome outside Dublin.

How Did the World React?

The Irish were delighted. An American in a battered airplane, covered in grease and reeking of gasoline, standing on an Irish airfield claiming he’d made a wrong turn — they thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. Dublin threw him a parade.

From that moment, he was “Wrong Way” Corrigan, and he wore the name proudly.

Back in the United States, the government suspended his pilot’s license — but only for fourteen days, which happened to be exactly how long it took him to return by steamship. By the time he set foot on American soil, his license was valid again. Whether that timing was coincidence or someone in Washington having a sense of humor remains an open question.

America embraced him. In a country still grinding through the Depression, people wanted a hero. New York City threw him a ticker-tape parade attended by an estimated one million people — more, some newspapers reported, than had turned out for Lindbergh. He appeared on magazine covers, and RKO produced a film called The Flying Irishman with Corrigan playing himself. He was the biggest celebrity in the country for the summer of 1938.

Did Corrigan Really Fly the Wrong Way?

The evidence speaks for itself. He had applied four times for permission to cross the Atlantic. He rebuilt his airplane specifically for an ocean crossing. He loaded 320 gallons of fuel — enough for at least 35 hours of flight — for what he claimed was a 20-hour trip to California. He headed east at takeoff. He carried no maps of the western United States but did carry a set of great circle charts for the North Atlantic.

But Corrigan never admitted it. Not once. Not for the rest of his life. Reporters asked. Talk show hosts asked. Friends asked. He stuck to the story: bad compass, heavy fog, honest mistake.

He lived to be eighty-eight years old, dying in 1995. In nearly sixty years of interviews, he never broke character.

Where Is the Curtiss Robin Today?

The airplane still exists. It is part of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s collection, housed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in Virginia. Visitors can see the patches on the fuselage, the bolted-in extra fuel tanks, and the floor-mounted compass that Corrigan claimed led him astray.

The entire transatlantic flight — airplane, modifications, fuel — cost Corrigan barely more than the price the original Curtiss Robin: $310 plus a few dollars in gasoline.

Key Takeaways

• Douglas Corrigan flew nonstop from New York to Dublin on July 17, 1938, in a $310 Curtiss Robin monoplane, claiming he meant to fly to California.
• The aircraft was more than 1,000 pounds over gross weight, had no radio, no forward visibility, and leaked fuel into the cabin throughout the flight.
• The Bureau of Air Commerce denied his transatlantic application four times, making his “accidental” crossing an act of deliberate defiance he never once acknowledged.
• America treated him as a folk hero, giving him a ticker-tape parade larger than Lindbergh’s and a Hollywood movie deal.
• Corrigan maintained the “wrong way” story until his death in 1995, never admitting the flight was intentional — and the Curtiss Robin hangs in the Smithsonian today as proof it happened.