Lithuania (1993) 10 Litas (front) - Darius & Girenas

Stephen Darius and Stanley Girėnas were Lithuanian pilots, emigrants to the United States, who made a significant flight in the history of world aviation. On July 15, 1933, they flew across the Atlantic Ocean, covering a distance of 3,984 miles (6,411 kilometers) without landing, in 37 hours and 11 minutes. In terms of comparison, as far as the distance of non-stop flights was concerned, their result ranked second only to that of Russell Boardman and John Polando, and it ranked fourth in terms of duration of flight at the time. Although Darius and Girenas did not have navigational equipment,and flew under unfavorable weather conditions, the flight made by the airmen at that time was one of the most precise in aviation history. It equaled, and in some aspects surpassed, Charles Lindbergh's classic flight. Lituanica also carried the first Transtlantic air mail consignment in history.

Lituanica was an American research aircraft that crossed the Atlantic in 1933, and crashed under mysterious circumstances close to its destination, Kaunas, Lithuania.

Lithuania (1993) 10 Litas (back) - plane Lituanica

After taking off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York on July 15, 1933, 6:24 AM EDT, Darius and Girėnas in their Lituanica successfully crossed the Atlantic, only to perish on July 17, 0:36 AM (Berlin Time) by the village of Kuhdamm, near Soldin, Germany (now Pszczelnik, Myslibórz area, Poland). The planned route was: New York - Newfoundland - Atlantic Ocean - Ireland - London - Amsterdam - Swinemünde - Königsberg - Kaunas (a total of 7,186 km). Due to weather conditions over Ireland, they changed course to the north and reached Germany via Scotland and the North Sea. In 37 hours and 11 minutes, until the moment of the crash, they had flown 6411 km (over 7000 km in actual flight path), only 650 km short of their goal — Kaunas.

In 1936, Lithuanian government decided to build a mausoleum, for the pilots Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas in Kaunas old cemetery, that was destroyed after Soviet re-occupation. From that year until the present day, the wreckage of Lituanica has been on display in the Vytautas the Great War Museum in Kaunas. At present the pilots' bodies rest in the Military Cemetery of Šančiai, Kaunas.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lituanica"