The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery
2366 Hickory Hill Road · Oxford, PA · 19363 · USA
610.467.1937 · info@tighar.org
On May 8, 1927, WWI heroes Charles Nungesser
and François Coli took off from LeBourget Field near Paris aboard
their biplane l’Oiseau Blanc (the White Bird) bound nonstop for New
York. Had they succeeded, the subsequent course of aviation history would
have been very different. Instead, a frantic but fruitless search for the
missing flyers dominated the headlines until Lindbergh’s takeoff just
twelve days later. The French tragedy set the stage for the American triumph.
Now, 95 years after l’Oiseau Blanc disappeared, we are following promising leads and material clues that have led us to a remote pond in Newfoundland, Canada. Field work is planned for September of 2022. MORE
The Earhart Project is testing the hypothesis that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan landed, and eventually died, on Gardner Island, now Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati. MORE
His music was the soundtrack of the Greatest Generation, and remains popular to this day. Glenn Miller dominated the Big Band era with hits like “In the Mood,” “String of Pearls,” “Moonlight Serenade” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo” when he gave up a $15,000 per week income in 1942 to join the war effort hoping, as he put it, “to be placed in charge of a modernized Army band.” He got his wish and from September of 1944 until his untimely death, Major Alton G. Miller’s Army Air Force Band gave 800 performances for troops stationed in England.
On December 15, 1944, Miller boarded a USAAF C-64 Norseman for a flight to Paris to coordinate relocating the band to the Continent. He was never seen again. An official inquiry concluded that the aircraft went down in the English Channel, possibly due to weather, but no wreckage or remains were ever found. MORE
In the summer of 2007, a Lockheed
P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft, presumed to be USAAF serial number 41-7677,
emerged from the sand of a beach in Wales where it crash landed in 1942.
The aircraft, largely intact and remarkably free of corrosion, is one
of the most significant WWII-related archaeological discoveries in recent
history. MORE
One of TIGHAR’s primary missions is to promote awareness and recognition of
the various forms of preservation so that decisions by pilots,
managers and curators can be made from an informed perspective
and so that the aviation enthusiast public can better appreciate
and support their efforts. MORE
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