June 14, 1919 — First Nonstop Transatlantic Flight
On this day in 1919, British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown took off from the Canadian island of Newfoundland in a historic first — a nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
The duo flew a modified Vickers Vimy bomber, a British World War I aircraft fitted with extra fuel tanks instead of bombs. The journey they completed covered about 3,040 kilometers (1,890 miles) and lasted just 16 hours and 12 minutes.
Flight Details
The flight departed from St. John’s, Newfoundland, at 1:45 p.m. GMT on June 14, 1919. The pilots faced harsh conditions — thick fog, snowstorms, and malfunctioning instruments. In one dangerous moment, the plane nearly crashed due to ice buildup on the wings, forcing Brown to climb onto the wing mid-flight and chip away the ice with his bare hands!
They finally landed in a bog near the village of Clifden in County Galway, Ireland, at 8:40 a.m. the next day. There was no runway — just a wet field. The plane sank into the bog and tipped forward, but the pilots emerged unharmed.
The Prize and Honors
The flight was motivated by a prize offered by the British Daily Mail newspaper: £10,000 (about £450,000 in 2025 value) to the first aviator to cross the Atlantic by plane in under 72 hours. Alcock and Brown won the prize and were knighted by King George V just one week after the flight.
The aircraft carried around 200 letters, marking the first airmail service across the Atlantic in history.
Significance of the Event
This flight opened the door to the era of transoceanic aviation. Before Alcock and Brown, traveling between Europe and America took days by sea. After their journey, the world began to see the potential of long-distance commercial flight. Just eight years later, Charles Lindbergh completed his famous solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927.
Today, thousands of passengers cross the Atlantic every day in flights that take just a few hours — all of which began with the daring 107-year-old journey of Alcock and Brown.
