Henri Guillaumet

Henri Guillaumet Monument in Bouy

Henri Guillaumet (born May 29, 1902 in Bouy, Département Marne , France , † November 27, 1940 in the Mediterranean ) was a French pilot and is considered an aviation pioneer .

Guillaumet sat on an airplane for the first time at the age of 14. In his life he flew 45 times over the Atlantic and 193 times over the Andes . He later worked as an executive director for the airline Air France .

On Friday, June 13, 1930, during his 92nd flight over the Andes for the French airmail company Aéropostale , Guillaumet survived a snowdrift-related crash landing with his Potez 25 on the encircled Diamond Lake in Argentina . Without any equipment other than his pilot's jacket, a knife, a watch and a compass, he saved himself by walking five days and four nights through storms and snow with the worst hardships at altitudes between 3000 and 4500 meters. He had given up several times when he found the strength to keep walking in the interests of his wife (who would not have received her life insurance if she was missing ) and friends ( “But I said to myself: if my wife believes that I am alive, then she believes that I'm marching. My comrades also believe that I'm marching. Everyone believes in me. I'd be a bastard if I didn't march. " ). In the end he just kept walking to make it easier to find his body next summer. After a week he finally reached a village completely exhausted. To his colleague and friend Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , who picked him up, he said: “I can tell you: what I've done, no animal could have done it!” . This heroic story is described in an episode of the novel Wind, Sands and Stars by Saint-Exupéry.

On November 27, 1940, his machine was shot down by an Italian fighter pilot over the Mediterranean during a flight to Syria . Guillaumet was killed in the process.

In his honor, a school in Blagnac near Toulouse was named after him, the College of Guillaumet .