“There’s one thing I wish to get straight about this flight,” he said. “They call me ‘Lucky,’ but luck isn’t enough. As a matter of fact, I had what I regarded and still regard as the best existing plane to make the flight from New York to Paris. I had what I regard as the best engine, and I was equipped with what were in the circumstances the best possible instruments for making such efforts. I hope I made good use of what I had.”
He also said that there were just two dangerous aspects of the flight: navigating the plane at night and landing near a crowd of people. “I appreciated the reception which had been prepared for me, and had intended taxiing up to the front of the hangars, but no sooner had my plane touched the ground than a human sea swept toward it. I saw there was a danger of killing people with my propeller, and I quickly came to a stop. That reception was the most dangerous part of the trip. Never in my life have I seen anything like that human sea. It isn’t clear to me yet just what happened. Before I knew it I had been hoisted out of the cockpit, and one moment was on the shoulders of some men and the next moment on the ground.”
To learn more about Charles Lindbergh, read his profile on findingDulcinea.
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