Famous Pilots in the Faroe Islands

World-Famous Pilots in the Faroe Islands

"On Friday evening around 7 o'clock, a distant hum was suddenly heard from the southeast, like that of a large blowfly – and at the same moment, a large crane fly appeared south of Nólsoy.

‘The aeroplane!’ people shouted, staring in awe at the foreign-looking vessel, which now roared as loudly as a motorboat as it flew over the fjord, turned eastwards in an arc right above the watch house hill – and continued over the rooftops out towards the bay, where it skidded across the water at full speed, turned back towards land, and anchored calmly off Tinganes..."

This was how the newspaper Tingakrossur described the event on 15 August 1924, when the Italian air captain Antonio Locatelli and his crew landed their Dornier Wal seaplane in the bay of Tórshavn. The town's other newspaper, Dimmalætting, reported that "Cows tethered over by Skansavegin were so frightened that they broke loose and galloped around as if they were mad, while seagulls fled swiftly from the church roof, apparently terrified of this new gigantic competitor on the routes where they and other winged colleagues had previously reigned supreme..."

Antonio Locatelli
Antonio Locatelli was born in Bergamo, Italy, in 1895. During the First World War, he served in an aviation unit of the Italian army and obtained his pilot's licence in 1915. He flew 523 missions during the war, distinguishing himself with daring operations, including a solo reconnaissance flight over Vienna in 1918.

After the war, Locatelli spent some time in South America, where in 1919 he set a record as the first pilot to fly over the Andes from Argentina to Chile, reaching an altitude of 6,500 meters on that occasion.

During the interwar period, Locatelli was active in the Fascist Party and briefly served as a parliamentary substitute.

Locatelli's expedition in 1924 was aimed at exploring possibilities for air routes between Europe and America.

Locatelli's Mishap
The day after arriving in the Faroe Islands, Locatelli continued his journey. A large crowd had gathered at the harbour on Saturday morning, and at 9 a.m. on 16 August 1924, the Dornier Wal aircraft took off again, circled over Kirkjubøreyn, and headed for Iceland, where it arrived in Hornafjörður on the southeast coast at noon.

In Iceland, Antonio Locatelli met American pilots who had crossed the Atlantic a few days earlier. The Americans knew he was on his way to the USA, and this would later prove to save his life.

On 21 August, Antonio Locatelli and his crew left Iceland. But when they did not reach their destination in Greenland, the American pilots raised the alarm – and their escort ship, the cruiser Richmond, began a search for the Italians. Late in the evening of 24 August, Richmond found Locatelli's seaplane floating about 100 nautical miles off the east coast of Greenland. They had been forced to land on the sea due to thick fog, and the aircraft was so damaged that it could not take off again. By that time, they had drifted at sea for three days. Locatelli and his crew escaped with their lives, but the mission ended with the crash off Greenland.

When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1936, Antonio Locatelli participated as the captain of a bomber. He was shot down during a bombing raid and died, aged only 41.

Transatlantic Seaplane Route?
After Locatelli's visit in 1924, the Faroe Islands were occasionally visited by aviation pioneers who, due to the lack of airstrips on land, always used seaplanes. Most visits were expeditions to explore the possibilities of establishing a transatlantic air route between Europe and the American continent.

Charles Lindbergh in the Faroe Islands
It caused quite a stir when news arrived in 1933 that the best-known of the aviation pioneers, Charles Lindbergh, might make a stopover here. He was conducting an expedition for Pan American Airways to assess the conditions for an air route between New York and Copenhagen.

A few years earlier, in 1927, Charles Lindbergh had completed the legendary solo flight from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis, securing him a place in aviation history as the most famous pilot ever.

The Taciturn Pilot
People in Tvøroyri were eager to see if the famous pilot would actually show up. Eventually, word came that he would arrive on 22 August. But the day came and went without any sign of a plane – so it was assumed that Lindbergh had passed the Faroe Islands and flown directly to the Shetlands.

The next day, on 23 August, a telegram arrived stating that Lindbergh had left Reykjavík and would land in Trongisvágsfjørður. Soon after, the plane appeared over the fjord and touched down on the water right off the town.

It caused quite a bit of surprise when Lindbergh came ashore with his wife, Anne Morrow, who turned out to be the navigator and telegraph operator on the journey. The town council had prepared a big celebration, but the couple excused themselves. The year before, they had experienced the tragedy of their two-year-old son being kidnapped and later found dead – so they were not in the mood for a party so soon after the terrible loss.

Their host, shipowner Gudmund Morten-sen, instead arranged a small dinner with a few guests. Charles Lindbergh was friendly and courteous but very reticent about the purpose of the mission. The later well-known Faroese author, Jørgen Franz Jacobsen, who was then a journalist for the Danish newspaper Politiken, tried to ask about the planned air route to Copenhagen, but Lindbergh politely deflected all questions regarding the expedition.

By noon the next day, Lindbergh and his wife were sailed out to their plane, followed by several boats. They patiently posed for photographs before boarding the aircraft and flying out of the fjord again, heading towards the Shetland Islands.

Sources:

Føroyar í flogsøguni by Niels Juel and Jógvan Arge.
Tingakrossur, 20 August 1924.
Dimmalætting, 20 August 1924.