On December 7, 1936, Mermoz took off from Dakar aboard the seaplane La Croix du Sud with four crew members, bound for Natal. In the end, he made 23 crossings of the South Atlantic between 19. The disappearance of one of his best friends on board a seaplane will only accentuate the quarrel between Mermoz and Air France as well as with the public authorities. In the meantime Aeropostale has been bought by Air France.Īir France remains very attached to seaplanes while Mermoz swears by traditional planes. It will connect Paris (Le Bourget) to Buenos Aires in 10 days. He will then multiply the openings of routes and records but it is only in 1933 that he will fly again over the South Atlantic. His damaged parachute barely slowed his fall and he miraculously escaped without injury. The escape hatch not being wide enough for his shoulders, he will owe his salvation only to…the disintegration of the plane which will allow him to get out. Later he miraculously survived an accident while testing a new aircraft. On he will connect Saint Louis (Senegal) to Natal (Brazil) in a little more than 21 hours, proving that it was possible to transport mail directly by plane! The return flight will be less fortunate because he will be forced to land at sea and the plane will be lost. He was eventually recalled to France to develop the first routes over the South Atlantic between Dakar and South America. And there again his first feats of arms will not be long in coming.įorced to make an emergency landing in the Andes Mountains, he spent three days repairing the plane with his colleagues and managed to get it to take off again by throwing it down a cliff. In 1927 he was still sent to Rio to study the opening of new roads in South America. Their secret plan was to continue across the Atlantic, but a material breakdown on landing put an end to their initiative.

In 1927 he was part of the crew that inaugurated the route between Toulouse and Saint-Louis in Senegal. He will then continue to accumulate exploits, once avoiding capture after having to land in hostile territory following a breakdown, once participating in rescue operations to find another crew. It’s not knowing him well : he will be back 3 months later. Suffering from a stomach ulcer after his walk in the desert as well as the abuse he suffered during his 3 days of captivity, many believe that he will never return. He will let himself be captured after several days in order not to die dehydrated (and not without having drunk the liquid from the plane’s radiator). In 1925, while operating on the Casablanca-Dakar route, he had to land in a rebel-held region because of an engine failure. It is then that the Mermoz legend begins as his exploits multiply. The director, the former pilot Didier Daurat, told him: “ I need pilots, not circus acrobats!“. He will owe his salvation only to a real talent but he will be made to understand that he should channel it and discipline himself. At the time of its examination of piloting and whereas the instructors expect from their pilots a great rigour considering the missions which will be theirs, it wants to impress and engages in a maneuver of acrobatics which will be worth almost to him to be fired. The’aéropostaleĪfter a lean period he joined, like many former soldiers, the French airline Aeropostale dedicated to the postal service but also to transatlantic passenger transport. In Syria he will have to land several times in the desert and sometimes walk long days in hostile territory and without food to find his base.īut, strong headed, he will develop over time a pronounced dislike for the military thing and will be demobilized in 1924 after a military career finally quite brief. A complicated relationship with the armyīold, Mermoz always volunteered for the most perilous missions. It is only during his 3rd attempt that he will obtain his licence in 1921. On a second attempt, his plane turned over on landing. When he passed his license, his engine stalled on takeoff and he crashed into the trees, leaving him with a broken leg and a fractured jaw. He will wait almost three months before he can fly a plane.

Then he was confronted with the low number of aircraft and their deplorable state of maintenance, which meant that many pilots were killed during training. When he entered the Military School of Istres, he was first bullied by the instructors who did everything they could to discourage young enlisted men from wanting to fly in order to test their will. If today the name of Mermoz embodies in the collective unconscious the exploits of an exceptional pilot, his first steps as a pilot were anything but simple. He is one of the pioneers who made possible the world of aviation as we know it today. It was on December 7, 1936, that an aviation icon left us: Jean Mermoz.

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