The next time the Nungesser/Coli flight entered public consciousness was in 1980. Writer and scholar Gunnar Hansen wrote an article for Yankee Magazine telling the story of the flight, and relating folklore local to Washington County, Maine, about a woodsman hearing an airplane crash in 1927. That article, torn from the magazine and sent from one brother to another as a matter of curiosity, kicked around in a desk drawer for four years.
Gunnar's article was about Anson Berry, a hermit who lived deep in the woods of coastal Maine. Was it the White Bird? Research established that the area was precisely on the flight's planned route to New York. Although Berry was long dead, local living witnesses came forward to tell of hearing or seeing an airplane that day. No fewer than thirty hunters told of coming upon a large airplane engine partially buried in the ground.
On the afternoon of May 9, 1927, Anson Berry, fishing in his canoe on Round Lake in eastern Maine, heard what sounded like an engine overhead, approaching from the northeast. He could not see the airplane, if that was what it was, because of a heavy overcast.
The engine sounded erratic. Moments later it stopped, and Berry heard what he described years later as a faint, ripping crash. The afternoon was wearing on, and the always unsteady spring weather was worsening; already rain was beginning to fall. Perhaps because he did not trust the weather to hold, Berry did not investigate what he heard.
If he had, one of aviation's most puzzling mysteries might have been solved. As it is, no one yet knows what happened to Captains Charles Nungesser and François Coli , who left Paris the morning of May 8, 1927, to attempt the first east-to-west transatlantic flight in history. Apparently they disappeared into the North Atlantic, forced down by the weight of ice on the wings of their biplane, named the White Bird.
16 persons in Newfoundland saw or heard an airplane pass overhead the morning of May 9. Given the times and locations of those sightings, quite possibly what Berry heard was the White Bird.
The next morning a massive sea search for them had begun. But no one knew where to look. They two Frenchmen could be anywhere in the North Atlantic, if they were even still afloat.
One sighting report arrived on May 11, and though it held little promise, it was not immediately disproved. A farmer in Harbour Grace, on Conception Bay in eastern Newfoundland, said he had heard an airplane engine nearby at 9:30 the morning of May 9.
In the meantime the sea search continued. But the combined vessels of four nations -- America, Canada, England, and France -- failed to come up with a single trace of the two men or their plane.
By May 12, however, the number of Harbour Grace witnesses had grown to six. Two men claimed it had been audible for 20 minutes.
By May 16, at least four more persons in Newfoundalnd had reported seeing or hearing an airplane on the morning of May 9.
On May 18 The New York Times published a letter suggesting the two fliers by have landed on some lake in Maine. In spite of the suggestion, no search was attempted in Maine.
On May 20, 12 days after Nungesser and Coli left paris, Charles Lindbergh departed from New York in his attempt to connect the two citites. His success eclipsed questions about their uncertain fate.
But they were not forgotten, of course. Quebec Province airplanes were searching Labrador and the north shore of the St. Lawrence. The Cotton Relief Expedition began an air search over Newfoundland that was to last eight futile weeks. At that point, having covered 15,000 square miles, they were now convinced that Nungesser and Coli never eached land.
Over the next years no new clues surfaced to suggest any other conclusion. Except, that is, for Berry's story, told long after most people had forgotten Nungesser and Coli.
But if Berry actually did hear a plane, why would one think it was -- or could be -- the White Bird?
Given the weather that day, the presence of any other plane would have been extremely unlikely. In addition, airplanes, rare as they were in 1927, were especially so in eastern Maine. So if it were both physically possible for the White Bird to have reached Round Lake and reasonable to expect it to have passed that way, and if Berry really did hear an airplane, then it may well have been the White Bird.
But the thread of evidence is admittedly thin; and it must begin in Newfoundland. How likely were the 16 sightings there to have been of the White Bird? First is the problem of time. Nungesser and Coli had expected to reach Newfoundland at about 2 a.m.; the sightings were more than seven hours later. One American aviator, himself planning a transatlantic flight at the time, thought their time calculations, based on Alcock and Brown's 1919 flight, were in error to begin with. Adding the factor of the headwind they encountered, he concluded the time of the Newfoundland sightings was reasonable.
What lends credence to the sightings is that, though officials sought information throughout Newfoundland, only persons in a line from Old Perlican to St. Lawrence reported hearing or seeing anything. And an airplane flying a course from Old Perlican to New York would have passed close enough to each of these locations to be heard or seen.
But why would this plane then have passed over Round Lake, which is west of this course? If, at Nova Scotia's southwest coast, Coli decided it best to cross the Bay of Fundy by the shortest route before proceeding again to the southwest, the turn would have taken the plane toward Round lake, 5 miles inland from the Maine coast.
Round Lake is approximately 1700 miles from Harbour Grace, a flight of six and a half to seven hours for the White Bird. The Harbour Grace plane would then have reached Round Lake between 4 and 4:30 p.m., 15 minutes either side of the time the White Bird was expected to run out of fuel. (Berry's time estimate was uncertain. He described it only as "late afternoon.")
But if an airplane did crash near Round Lake, why has no one come upon it by now? First, because any sign of the wreckage that might at the time have been visible from he air would long since have been obscured. And because of the heavy undergrowth, few persons ever walk through there.
In the more than 50 years since the crash, perhaps the only surviving identifiable remnant of the wood and cloth White Bird would now be the engine. And, if the plane did hit a marsh, it could be completely submerged.
Did Nungesser and Coli, though tragically short of their goal, succeed in making the first east-to-west transatlantic flight? Do the remains of the White Bird lie somewhere west of Round Lake, Maine? Some evidence suggests they may. Perhaps someday a searcher will come upon the White Bird's rusted engine; and with that discovery will be solved one of the longest standing, most puzzling mysteries in aviation history.
After reading the story...it struck me that here in "Red Lake" Ontario, Canada...We have a Nungessor Road and a Coli Lake. At first it was a surprise but considering it, Our history is thick with early aviation. At one time in the 40's-50's Red Lake had as many as 100 plus take off's from the bay (boatplanes, floatplanes etc.). I can look out my window at any time during the day, to see Otters, Bevers, Beach 19's and Norsemen taking off and landing since the bay is in very middle of town. It still amazes me at the stuff these pioneers were made of. As I work at the local airport at night servicing planes..I realize how absolutely primitive their equipment was...I hope they do find the site some day. I seems only right that we have something to remember them by.
Warm Regards
Kilgour Trout