Jimmie Angel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jimmie Angel (born August 1, 1899 in Springfield , Missouri , USA ; † December 8, 1956 in Panama City , Panama ; born James Crawford Angel Marshall ) was an American bush pilot well-known in South America , after whom the fishing Waterfalls ( Salto Ángel ) in Venezuela are named.

Angel's plane: "El Rio Caroni", type: Ryan Flamingo

Discovery of the Ángel Salto

Jimmie Angel is the rediscoverer of the highest waterfall in the world, the Salto Ángel in Venezuela. The first discoverer was Ernesto Sánchez La Cruz in 1910. Until it was rediscovered by Jimmie Angel on November 16, 1933, when he was looking for gold and gold-bearing river valleys, the waterfall remained almost unknown. The waterfall falls from the table mountain Auyan-Tepui in the remote plateau of Gran Sabana . On October 9, 1937, he returned here on his plane to land. His second wife Marie (as navigator) and Gustavo Heny and his gardener Miguel Delgado were also on board his “Flamingo” that day.

Angel case

During the landing, which was not entirely successful, the landing gear wheels dug so deeply into the mud at the end of the coasting path that a restart was out of the question, especially since the aircraft's nose was also stuck in the mud. The inmates were uninjured, but had to cope with an eleven-day descent from the Auyan-Tepui without appropriate equipment, with very little provisions and without maps (the area had not yet been mapped) until they reached the next settlement Kamarata .

Jimmie Angels plane

The plane stayed at its landing pad on Table Mountain until 1970. Then it was dismantled and the individual parts flown down by Venezuelan military helicopters. The dismantled parts of his aircraft were first exhibited in the 1970s at an air show in northern Venezuela, where it was also decided that reassembly was too time-consuming; In particular, some parts of the aircraft that had been unattended outdoors on the mountain plateau for over 30 years were also missing.

In the late 1990s there were plans to replace the aircraft with a model so that the original aircraft could be exhibited in the Aircraft Museum in Maracay.

Today his plane “El Rio Caroní” can be seen in front of the airport terminal of Ciudad Bolívar . Most flights to visit the falls depart from Ciudad Bolívar Airport ( ICAO code : SVCB; IATA airport code : CBL).

death

Jimmie Angel died in Panama in 1956 as a result of injuries after an aircraft accident. In fulfillment of his last wish, his widow and his two sons returned to the waterfall after four years (July 1960) to scatter his ashes from the plane. The 2009 film Above was inspired by this event.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karen Angel: The Truth About Jimmie Angel. ( Memento of December 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) p. 11
personal data
SURNAME Angel, Jimmie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marshall, James Crawford Angel (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pilot
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Springfield
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1956
Place of death Panama City