1-192-083 - © London Museum/Heritage-Images

Wrecked Sopwith Atlantic aircraft from the Atlantic crossing attempt, Oxford Street, London, 1919. In 1919 there was intense public interest in the possibility of making the first non-stop transatlantic flight, with the Daily Mail newspaper offering a prize of £10,000 for a successful crossing. The Sopwith Atlantic was a single-engined aircraft built specifically for an attempt. Flown by Australian pilot Harry Hawker and navigator Kenneth Mackenzie Grieve, the aircraft took off from Newfoundland on 18 May 1919, but persistent problems with the engine overheating forced them to ditch the plane in mid-Atlantic next to a freighter, which rescued them. The wreckage was recovered and brought to Oxford Street to be displayed on top of Selfridges. Just under a month after Hawker and Grieve's attempt, the first transatlantic flight was successfully accomplished by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in a Vickers Vimy.