American Harriet Quimby: First Woman to Fly across English Channel

When people think of American women pioneers in aviation, Amelia Earhart usually comes to mind. However, Harriet Quimby was the first woman to earn a pilot’s license in the United States, which she accomplished on Aug. 1, 1911—twelve years before Earhart. In September of that year she achieved another distinction: first woman to make a nighttime flight. Then, on April 16, 1912, she performed a remarkably brave and daring feat: the first woman to fly across the English Channel, which she accomplished in 59 minutes flying solo in a 50-horsepower monoplane!

She had made history, but received little of the acclaim Earhart received years later in much more powerful and advanced airplanes, such as Earhart’s 1932 transatlantic solo flight, or when she flew from Hawaii to California in 1935. The reason? The day before Quimby’s historic flight the Titanic sank, which dominated the news for weeks afterward.

Just 11 months after receiving her pilot’s license, as her flight career and fame were beginning to really take off, Quimby’s life tragically ended in a fatal airplane accident, just as Earhart’s would 25 years later. However, unlike Earhart’s mysterious disappearance, Quimby’s death occurred in full view of a horrified audience.

On July 1, 1912, Quimby was performing in the Third Annual Boston Aviation Meet, held in Squantum, Ma. She made a flight around Dorchester Bay, carrying William Willard, the air show’s organizer, as a passenger. As her plane was returning, with a crowd of 5,000 spectators watching her every move, her plane suddenly pitched forward at an altitude of 1500 feet. Both she and Willard tumbled out of their seats—they were not wearing seat belts—and hurtled through the air to their deaths, plunging through shallow water into the bay’s mud just 20 feet from the shoreline. She was 37 years old.

This was the brief announcement of Quimby’s historic Channel crossing the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas) published on page 14 of its April 16, 1912, issue:

Woman Flies across Channel

Miss Harriet Quimby, an American, Crosses from Dover to Hardelot, France

Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France, April 16.—Miss Harriet Quimby, an American airwoman, crossed the English Channel from Dover this morning, landing at Hardelot in the vicinity of this port.

Miss Quimby is the first woman to accomplish the feat of flying across the Channel alone. Her flight occupied two hours [correction: 59 minutes—ed.].

This notice was published by the Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minnesota) on April 17, 1912:

Harriet Quimby, American woman, is the first of her sex to fly across the English Channel. “The female eagle holds her place as representative of race as well as doth the male.”

This notice was published by the Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) on April 18, 1912:

Miss Harriet Quimby is the first woman to cross the English Channel driving her own aeroplane. And yet some persons say that women don’t have the requisite amount of nerve to turn these little tricks!

Finally, nearly two months after her historic flight and after the news of the Titanic had died down, this newspaper hired Quimby to write a short account of her feat. This article was published by the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) on June 5, 1912:

‘How I Flew the Channel’—Daring American Girl’s Story of Feat That Startled Europe

‘Empress of the Air’ Writes for Times-Leader

Editor’s Note: Miss Harriet Quimby, an American girl, recently startled Europe by flying alone and unaided across the English Channel. France and Great Britain have crowned her “Empress of the Air,” and have given her precedence over all their birdwomen. Miss Quimby is a Californian [correction: Michigan—ed.] by birth, and New Yorker by adoption. She is 24 years old.

By Harriet Quimby

Directly I took my seat in the Bleriot I knew I would be all right—she was a beauty! I felt perfectly at home. I set my course over Dover Castle, and had my first surprise in a few minutes. When the machine rose everything was beautifully still and calm, but once over the castle and [I] ran into the most exciting gusty winds.

But I was up and away over the Channel before they had time to do harm. And then it was heigh-ho, and me for Calais as hard as I could pelt! The Channel, no doubt, looked very fine, but I was not out for admiring the view just then.

I let the Bleriot go for all she was worth, and then “slap-bang” I hit a fogbank head on. In about ten seconds I hadn’t the remotest idea where I was. I just couldn’t go blundering on through that horrible fog, so I sent the Bleriot up until I was 2000 feet high.

Below me land suddenly appeared. On the left I saw a town standing out, and I took this to be Calais. So I swung off promptly to the right, comfortably thinking that I should strike the flying ground all right.

There were the most beautiful green fields below me, but they looked so nice and compact and so well laid out that I simply couldn’t come down on them and tear them up. So I cut back, and finally landed on the beach.

The place turned out to be a little fishing village called Equihen. I had climbed safely out of the machine and was congratulating myself in a self-satisfied way when over the top of the beach there came suddenly running a host of the quaintest figures, each carrying, as I subsequently discovered, a pailful of worms.

They all stopped short about twenty yards away, and we respectfully admired each other for some minutes. Then we both started to speak at once.

After a bit I gathered that they—they were all fishermen—were hailing me as the first woman to fly the Channel. It was very, very nice of them, but what I wanted most was to send a telegram off to my mother, telling of my safe arrival.

For more information, visit the Harriet Quimby website provided by the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission.

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