Lindbergh, Charles A

Lindbergh, Charles A(ugustus)

Charles A. Lindbergh in front of his airplane Spirit of St. Louis, 1927.

(credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Feb. 4, 1902, Detroit, Mich., U.S.—died Aug. 26, 1974, Maui, Hawaii) Aviator who made the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He left college to enroll in army flying schools and became an airmail pilot in 1926. He obtained backing from St. Louis businessmen to compete for a prize for flying from New York to Paris, and in 1927 in the monoplane Spirit of St. Louis he made the flight in 33.5 hours, becoming an instant hero in the U.S. and Europe. In 1929 he married the writer Anne Morrow (1906–2001), who would later serve as his copilot and navigator. In 1932 their child was kidnapped and murdered, a crime that received worldwide attention. They moved to England to escape the publicity, returning to the U.S. in 1940 to criticism over his speeches calling for U.S. neutrality in World War II. During the war Lindbergh was an adviser to Ford Motor Company and United Aircraft Corporation. After the war he was a consultant to Pan American Airways and the U.S. Department of Defense and served on many aeronautical boards and committees. In 1953 he wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Spirit of St. Louis.