Sviderskytė, G., Stankūnavičius, G., Rimkus, E.
Weather conditions during a transatlantic flight of
Lituanica on July 15–17, 1933
This article focuses on the 1933 transatlantic flight of the
airplane Lituanica and weather conditions en-route. Using reanalysis methods
and comparative analysis of historiographical data, the authors aimed to
restore the weather conditions and to evaluate pilots’ decision-making process
in rapidly changing situation during a flight from New York to Kaunas. In this
study, the apparent flight path of Lituanica (actual flight path remains
undocumented) was divided into three stages, with weather conditions
investigated for each segment. The findings suggest that weather-based decision
making was essential throughout most of the flight and could have played a
vital role in the final stage. Over the European mainland, deteriorated weather
conditions became unfavourable to maintaining the heading to Lithuania. The
adverse weather had forced pilots to abandon their flight plan and consequently
led to an attempted forced landing and the fatal crash in Germany.