Lockheed Altair

Lockheed Altair

Lady Southern Cross Replica – Balranald Southern Cross Museum

The Lady Southern Cross was a Lockheed Altair monoplane owned by Australian pioneer aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. In this aircraft, Kingsford Smith made the first eastward trans-Pacific flight from Australia to the United States, in October and November of 1934. In 1935 while attempting to break the England to Australia speed record, Kingsford Smith and co-pilot Tommy Pethybridge went missing overnight from Allahabad, India, to Singapore. The crash site has never been found. Eighteen months after the disappearance, an undercarriage leg and wheel (with its tyre still inflated) was washed ashore at Aye Island in the Gulf of Martaban, 3 km (2 mi) off the southeast coastline of Burma. This was the only trace of aircraft found.