Charles Nungesser: The Fearless Aviator Who Vanished Into Legend

He was a daredevil from an early age – an ace pilot, a decorated war hero, and a legend in his own time. Charles Nungesser soared to fame as one of France’s most decorated fighter aces, his name spoken with reverence by comrades and rivals alike. But his appetite for danger didn’t end with the Great War. In May 1927, he set his sights on a new frontier – the first non-stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, a feat that promised glory and immortality.

With navigator François Coli by his side and the world watching, Nungesser climbed into the cockpit of L’Oiseau Blanc – The White Bird – and vanished into the mist over the Atlantic. The disappearance of Nungesser and Coli would ignite decades of speculation, transforming a bold attempt to do what no-one had done before into one of aviation’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

Did they succumb to bad weather, or did they reach the shores of the USA, only to be lost in the wilds of Maine? Were they shot down by rum runners? Did they make it to North America and live out their lives with Canada’s indigenous people, or were they part of a clandestine post-war cover-up?

What happened to Nungesser, the legendary French adventurer? Buckle up, this could be a bumpy ride…

Imagine a heady mix of Muhammad Ali, Indiana Jones, Ayrton Senna and Douglas Bader and you come close to finding out who Charles Nungesser was.

Born in Paris in March 1892, Nungesser attended the École des Arts et Métiers where he was described as a mediocre student but an excellent sportsman, especially in the boxing ring. After completing his studies, it’s believed he travelled to South America – initially to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to search for an uncle who couldn’t be found, and then to Buenos Aires in Argentina. He found work as a mechanic and soon became a professional racing driver. His passion for speed and engines led him to participate in some of the earliest car races in South America.

While in Argentina, Nungesser’s interest in racing naturally extended to aviation. He learned to fly using a friend’s Blériot plane and this remarkable French adventurer began performing at air shows and taking part in exhibition flights over Uruguay and Argentina. Eventually, he found his uncle and spent some time working on the family’s sugar plantation somewhere in the east of the country.

His experiences as a mechanic, racer, and pilot in Argentina laid the foundation for his daring exploits in World War I and beyond.

A decade and a half before the disappearance of Nungesser, he returned to France from Argentina when World War I broke out. He quickly distinguished himself first as a cavalryman with the 2nd Régiment de Hussards, where he won the Médaille militaire, then as a fighter pilot with the Service Aéronautique in the skies over the Western Front.

As a captain in the French Air Service, he amassed at least 43 confirmed air-to-air victories, making him the third-highest scoring French ace of the war behind René Fonck (75) and Georges Guynemer (54). His daring exploits and larger-than-life persona earned him the nickname ‘The Knight of Death,’ and he became a household name in wartime France.

Charles Nungesser’s wartime record was distinguished not only by his victory tally but also by the litany of honours he received. Along with the Médaille militaire, he was awarded the Légion d’honneur, the Croix de guerre with 28 palms, and numerous foreign decorations, including the U.S. Distinguished Service Cross, the Belgian Order of Leopold, the War Cross from Portugal, and the Serbian Medal for Bravery, testament to both his courage and his unorthodox approach to aerial combat.

Ruggedly good looking with a flamboyant personality, he had a voracious appetite for the pleasures of Paris and was known as much for insubordination as for skill – once forcing his way into battle in a borrowed two-seater and later painting his SPAD with a skull-and-crossbones motif. It’s fair to say that Nungesser personified the swashbuckling spirit of a World War I fighter ace.

In the years before the Nungesser disappearance, he tried his hand at a number of different ventures, including an ill-fated attempt at setting up a private flying school, selling second-hand fighter planes in Cuba, and attempting to break into the emerging movie business in America, even starring in a silent film called The Sky Raider directed by T. Hayes Hunter. He also flew as a pilot in The Dawn Patrol directed by Howard Hawks. In 1923 he became engaged to one Consuelo Hatmaker and they married the same year. Within three years they were divorced.

By the mid-1920s, the allure of the Orteig Prize had captured Charles Nungesser’s imagination. The $25,000 reward – offered by New York hotelier Raymond Orteig to the first aviators to complete a non-stop flight between Paris and New York – was a compelling challenge. Adjusted for inflation, the prize would be worth around $450,000 today, making it a highly attractive prospect for the daring French adventurer.

Originally proposed in 1919 and renewed in 1925 after no successful attempts, the prize drew the interest of many aviators. François Coli, a seasoned navigator and fellow Légion d’honneur recipient, initially planned the transatlantic flight with fellow wartime ace Paul Tarascon. However, when Tarascon was injured in a crash while flying his Potez 25 biplane, 35-year-old Nungesser stepped in to take his place.

At 5.17am on May 8, 1927, Charles Nungesser and François Coli took off from Le Bourget airfield in their white Levasseur PL.8 wood and fabric-covered biplane, L’Oiseau Blanc (The White Bird), aiming to cross the Atlantic from Paris to New York. It was a feat never before accomplished east to west.

The plane was powered by a 460-hp Lorraine-Dietrich engine and equipped with two additional fuel tanks, with a total capacity of just over 4,000 litres. This would have given them roughly 42 hours flight time. It was fitted with a boat-hull fuselage in case the plane ditched at sea and was adorned with Nungesser’s personal logo – a skull and crossbones with candles and a coffin on a black heart.

The plane didn’t have a radio, Coli was entirely reliant on celestial navigation. On take-off, the Levasseur PL.8 weighed around five tonnes, unusually heavy for a biplane of the time.

The Route from Paris to New York

The intended route would have taken them northwest from Paris, over the Normandy coast and the English Channel, across southern England and Ireland, then out over the vast expanse of the North Atlantic, aiming for Newfoundland and down the Eastern Seaboard to New York where they had intended to land on the water in front of the Statue of Liberty.

Once Nungesser and Coli were airborne, they were escorted by four military planes led by a French Air Force Captain and last sighted by the French over the Normandy coast.

The British submarine HMS H50 reported sighting the aircraft at an altitude of 300 metres, approximately 37 kilometres from the Needles, off the Isle of Wight. The plane was last seen over the southern tip of Ireland, according to several contemporary reports – though none confirmed it definitively. Eyewitness accounts came from a resident of Dungarvan in County Waterford and a Catholic priest near the fishing village of Carrigaholt in County Clare.

It was reported that tens of thousands of people gathered expectantly in Battery Park in Manhattan to welcome Nungesser and Coli’s arrival, and newspapers back in France wrote of a successful crossing, however after it passed the southern edge of Ireland, The White Bird was never seen again.

The prevailing theories around the disappearance of Charles Nungesser and François Coli tend to cluster into a few key explanations.

Crash in the Atlantic

The most widely accepted theory is that the plane went down in open sea in the North Atlantic, likely due to bad weather or fuel exhaustion. The last confirmed sighting was off the coast of Ireland, and most investigators believe the aircraft never made it to North America. No wreckage or bodies were ever recovered, and few clues emerged beyond a handful of uncorroborated ‘mystery aircraft’ sightings off Newfoundland and Maine.

Crash in Newfoundland or Eastern Canada

Some – albeit very little – evidence, as well as uncorroborated witness reports suggest the plane may have reached Newfoundland or the French territory of St Pierre et Miquelon, an archipelago just off Newfoundland’s southernmost tip. French officials have even commemorated Charles Nungesser and François Coli with street signs claiming they completed the transatlantic crossing, though this remains speculative at best.

Crash in Maine

Another prominent theory suggests that L’Oiseau Blanc successfully crossed the Atlantic but crashed in the forests of Maine. This idea is based on unverified witness reports of an unfamiliar aircraft in the region, as well as the discovery of metal fragments and wood consistent with the biplane’s construction – most notably near Round Lake Hills, in the eastern part of the state. Multiple search efforts, including those led by the National Underwater & Marine Agency – a private non-profit founded by thriller author Clive Cussler – have focused on this area, but no definitive wreckage has ever been recovered.

Shot Down

One of the more fanciful theories as to the Nungesser disappearance, is that rum-runners, mistaking L’Oiseau Blanc for a coast guard aircraft, opened fire on the white biplane off the US coast. Surviving a forced landing, Nungesser and Coli may have stumbled into the Maine woodlands only to succumb to exposure. This tale was dramatised on the TV series Unsolved Mysteries and lives on in local folklore.

A Government Cover-Up?

A handful of claims assert Nungesser and Coli actually made it all the way to New York Harbour before being spirited away. Rumours have included clandestine internment in remote military sites, and a secret American government cover-up to preserve the legacy of Charles Lindbergh (and America’s aviation prestige) who, just two weeks later, successfully flew from New York to Paris and claimed the Orteig Prize.

A Staged Disappearance?

No-one knows what happened to Nungesser and Coli, but another story suggests they landed safely and lived out their days incognito, adopted into indigenous Canadian communities or hidden by shadowy agencies to keep wartime secrets buried.

At the fringe sit tales of alien abduction, time-slip phenomena, or psychic sightings of ghostly biplanes over the Normandy cliffs. Some even claim a wall of silence has concealed the truth of a crash site found generations ago – and suppressed ever since. While entertaining, these ideas remain part of the enduring mythology surrounding the disappearance of Charles Nungesser and François Coli.

The disappearance of Nungesser and Coli’s plane remains one of aviation’s greatest mysteries, fuelling speculation and legend for nearly a century. It’s been described as ‘the Everest of aviation mysteries’, and The White Bird was called ‘History’s Most Important Missing Airplane’ by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery.

A street in Paris’s 16th arrondissement bears the name Rue Nungesser et Coli, and a monument stands in Étretat – the Normandy coastal town where the aircraft was last seen in France. Across the Atlantic, the Ontario Surveyor General honoured the lost aviators in 1928 by naming two lakes in Canada Lake Coli and Lake Nungesser.

What happened to Nungesser and Coli? No-one knows for sure, but their bold attempt, most likely lost to the Atlantic, stands as a haunting reminder of the risks faced by early aviation pioneers and the enduring allure of the unknown.