Wrong Way Corrigan's Wild Ride: The Unbelievable Tale of an Accidental Transatlantic Flight

Summary

On July 17, 1938, American pilot Douglas Corrigan took off from New York City for a long-haul trip. He had 320 gallons of gas in a rickety airplane and a permit to fly to California. Twenty-eight hours later, he landed in Dublin, Ireland—more than three thousand miles away in the opposite direction.

Corrigan claimed it was an accident and he’d misread his compass in the dark. But he had been planning a solo transatlantic flight for years: upgrading his old plane on a shoestring budget, practicing flying at altitude and in bad weather, and making seven cross-country trips. He’d aced his pilot test, including the navigation section. But he’d been refused a permit to fly across the Atlantic by United States aviation authorities.

From his hardscrabble childhood and time as an aircraft mechanic, including working on the crew that built the Spirit of St. Louis for Charles Lindbergh—Corrigan’s hero, who would later snub him—to the media frenzy that followed his “accidental” journey, Wrong Way Corrigan’s Wild Ride is a fast-paced account of the early, golden days of aviation and the first (and only) pilot to fly across the Atlantic “by mistake”: an appealing, approachable, and independent adventurer who achieved his dream entirely with his own resources and was never spoiled by fame—and who stuck to his story to the end.

“Taking flight has never been more fun—or less safe—than in Wrong Way Corrigan’s Wild Ride. There’s a jolt of adrenaline on every page of this book, and for landing it safely, Mara Rockliff deserves a ticker tape parade.”—Nicholas Day, author of The Mona Lisa Vanishes