Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, who became part of American folklore when he blamed a failed compass for steering him into a forbidden trans-Atlantic flight, is dead at 88.
The former aviator died Saturday at St. Joseph's Hospital, his son Douglas told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.U.S. aviation officials had forbidden Corrigan to make a trans-Atlantic hop, saying that his plane - which he bought used for $310 and modified for long-distance flight - wouldn't be safe weighted down with all that fuel.
Corrigan said he would fly back to Long Beach, Calif. But somehow the 31-year-old pilot landed in Ire land on July 18, 1938 - 28 hours and 3,150 miles after he left New York.
"My compass froze," he said. "I guess I flew the wrong way."
He stuck to that story all his life.
"When I came down through the clouds I noticed I had been reading the compass needle backwards," he said years later. He said he realized he hadn't gone to California because "the place was greener and some of the houses had hay roofs."
He would say it with a twinkle in his eye. America and Ireland both took the brash Irish-American to heart.
In Dublin, he had to rush out and buy a tie for the spontaneous celebrations in his honor. New Yorkers gave him a ticker-tape parade. Hollywood put out "The Flying Irishman" starring Corrigan as himself. He got to meet President Franklin Roosevelt and wrote an autobiography, "That's My Story."
Corrigan later estimated he earned $85,000 in appearance fees and other wages of fame.
The Bureau of Air Commerce, forerunner of the Federal Aviation Administration, gave him a slap on the wrist for his journey: He was suspended from flying for a mere five days - all of them served while he was still aboard ship on the way home.
During World War II, Corrigan was with the Army ferry command and later was a test pilot. After war, he ran an air freight service. In the 1950s, he bought an orange grove in Santa Ana.
On the 50th anniversary of his flight, in 1988, he went to Ireland by commercial jet and was feted all over again. U.S. Ambassador Margaret Heckler told the aviator: "I'm so proud of you. You are amazing."
Corrigan, born in Galveston, Texas, was inspired to try aviation when he was on the team of San Diego factory workers who built the "Spirit of St. Louis," which Charles Lindbergh flew across the ocean in 1927.
"Flying today is different, all buttons and jets," Corrigan said in a 1957 interview. "The ships are too hot and the kids fly them sometimes before they know what flying is all about."