Jean Mermoz
Jean Mermoz (born December 9, 1901 in Aubenton , † December 7, 1936 in the Atlantic ) was a French pilot and aviation pioneer .
Life
On June 26, 1920, Mermoz joined the Armée de l'air , the French air force, for four years . On January 29, 1921, he made his pilot's license. In 1922 Mermoz was transferred to Palmyra in Syria and survived a crash there. On June 30, 1924, Mermoz finished his military service with 600 flight hours.
In September 1924 he found a job in Toulouse at Latécoère , the later Compagnie générale aéropostale , initially as an aircraft mechanic. From the beginning of 1925 he served as a pilot on the Toulouse - Barcelona - Alicante line . This year he covered 120,000 km in 800 flight hours and received a medal from the Aéro-Club de France .
From March 1926 he flew on the Casablanca - Dakar line . On October 10 and 11, 1927, he mastered the Toulouse – Saint-Louis (Senegal) route non-stop for the first time . On April 16, 1928, Mermoz made the first night flight on the Buenos Aires - Rio de Janeiro route . On July 14, 1929, Mermoz opened the Andean line with a flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago de Chile .
From May 12 to 13, 1930, his first flight from the Saint Louis hydro base in Senegal across the South Atlantic to Natal (Brazil) was on board the Comte de la Vaulx . The flight distance was 3,173 km and the flight time 21 hours 10 minutes. On the return flight on July 8th, which was postponed several times, Mermoz had to make an emergency landing with the Comte de la Vaulx 900 meters off the African coast .
On August 23, 1930, Jean Mermoz married Gilberte Henriette Rose Chazottes in Paris , whom he had met in South America in 1928.
On April 15, 1935, Mermoz was appointed Inspector General of Air France .
Between 1930 and 1936 Mermoz made 24 South Atlantic crossings, both with flying boats and with land-based aircraft.
On December 7, 1936 at 6:53 a.m., the four-engine flying boat Croix du Sud with a crew of five under Jean Mermoz at the controls left the hydro base near Dakar on a flight to Natal in Brazil. Previously, the transmission on the right rear engine had to be repaired after an aborted attempt to start. At 10:43 am there was a last radio message from the flight: “Coupons moteur arrière droit (We switch off the right rear engine)” and a final position report: 11 ° 8 North 22 ° 40 West, that was almost 700 km southwest of Dakar . It was the best flying weather. Since then, there has been no trace of the aircraft and its crew.
On December 30, 1936, a commemorative event was held for Jean Mermoz and his companions in the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, with a speech by Aviation Minister Pierre Cot and in the presence of Minister of War Édouard Daladier .
Honors
- 1927 Cross of the Legion of Honor
- 1934 Commander of the Legion of Honor
- the Mermoz district in the Mermoz-Sacré Cœur district of Dakar is named after him, as is that
- Lycée Jean Mermoz of the Agence pour l'Enseignement Français à l'Etranger (AEFE) in Dakar
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Décembre 1936: Les derniers Jours de Jean MERMOZ d'Hussein-Dey à Dakar
- ^ Lycée Jean Mermoz on the Internet
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mermoz, Jean |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French pilot and aviation pioneer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 9, 1901 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aubenton |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 7, 1936 |
| Place of death | Atlantic |