Toulouse. History of aviation: Pierre de Saint-Roman, hero forgotten by the exploits of Mermoz
By Toulouse editorial staff
Published on
In the history of aviation, May 13, 1930 remains a mythical date. On board the Latécoère 28.3 seaplane called the Comte-de-la-Vaulx, the crew led by John Mermoz is the first to achieve the commercial link between Saint-Louis (Senegal) and Natal (Brazil).
A trip with ladders
However, three years earlier, this crossing of the South Atlantic was carried out by that of Captain Pierre de Saint-Roman. This aviator then had the ambition to travel to South America by air and to carry out a tour there with stopovers in the largest cities of the continent. The Paris-America Latine (PAL) committee, which aims to financially help initiatives between Europe and South America, supports the project of this daring Toulouse man, originally from Fourquevaux (Haute-Garonne), in the Lauragais.
An aviation dive war hero
Like many men of his generation, this brilliant soldier has a passion for nascent aviation. He, who distinguished himself during the First World War by numerous acts of bravery, passed his military pilot’s license at the School of Pau (Pyrenees-Atlantiques) August 19, 1918. After the armistice, he continued on this path.
In 1924, he asked for unpaid leave from the Etablissement Descamps to ask that he be commercial director in order to realize his dream: the aerial crossing of Latin America. Encouraged by the PAL, he chose a twin-engine Goliath, from the Farman factories located in Boulogne-Billancourt, which can be transformed into a seaplane. This inexperienced ambitious man, who has only accumulated 250 flying hours, joins the services of naval lieutenant Marcel Mouneyrès and mechanic Ernest Mathis.
They take off from the Etang de Berre
The three men have left France since the pond of Berre (Bouches-du-Rhône) to Casablanca. The aircraft, forced to land in the open sea, was damaged. Repaired, it is put back on wheels. The Air Navigation Service, which had authorized the crossing granted to the seaplane, canceled their airworthiness certificate. But Saint-Roman, Mouneyrès and Mathis decide to continue their adventure.
The remains of the device found by Brazilian fishermen
On May 5, 1927, at 6:30 a.m., they took off carrying 5,000 liters of gasoline, for an autonomy corresponding to 28 hours. At 10:38 a.m., we picked up their radio signals one last time before losing track of them.
But on June 18, fishermen discovered a makeshift raft made up of parts of the plane. Galleyrand, a former Farman mechanic, dispatched to the scene, confirms the authenticity of this debris. To pay Christophe de La Fage and Christian Domengeau Viguerie, who is working on the rehabilitation of Saint-Roman: “We are therefore certain that they arrived alive on the mainland of the coast of Brazil, but that they could not reach the interior of the land because of an impassable cliff. We strongly suspect that the raft they had made drifted and that they capsized and are therefore not living income. »
Matthew Arnal
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