One hundred years ago today — 9 May 1926 — a Fokker F.VII trimotor named Josephine Ford took off from a snow strip on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, climbed to 1,500 feet, and disappeared north into the Arctic dawn. Fifteen and a half hours later it landed back where it started.

Richard Evelyn Byrd, the navigator, climbed out and announced he had become the first person to fly to the North Pole. The world celebrated. Byrd received the Medal of Honor. Calvin Coolidge promoted him on the spot.

And then, decades later, a National Geographic-funded re-examination of Byrd’s own flight diary suggested something nobody had ever wanted to admit out loud: the maths did not work.

The Race to the Pole

By 1926 the North Pole had been reached on foot, by Robert Peary in 1909 (also disputed) and by airship — Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile would fly the dirigible Norge over the pole three days after Byrd’s flight, on 12 May. The race to be first to reach the pole by a heavier-than-air machine was a race against the airship as much as against any other pilot.

Byrd and Bennett took off in cold, clear conditions. They flew north on dead-reckoning navigation supplemented by sun shots taken through Byrd’s bubble sextant. The aircraft’s three Wright Whirlwind engines ran perfectly. They returned, they said, after circling the pole for thirteen minutes. Bennett collapsed, exhausted, on the snow. Byrd waved his cap.

The Diary That Tells a Different Story

For sixty years, Byrd’s claim was unchallenged. Then in 1996, his sextant book — which had been in family hands — was donated to Ohio State University. Researchers found pencil-erased entries. The corrected sun-altitude figures, when run through modern recalculation, showed the aircraft turning back at roughly 87°47′N — about 240 kilometres short of the pole.

Byrd’s defenders point out that the calculation depends on a single, ambiguous diary entry. Byrd’s critics — including the explorer Bernt Balchen, who flew with him on later expeditions and openly disbelieved the 1926 claim — say the timing simply does not work. The Josephine Ford’s three engines, at 1926 cruise speeds, could not have covered the round-trip distance in 15 hours 57 minutes if the destination was the actual North Pole.

Amundsen Got There — Quietly

Three days after Byrd’s flight, Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth and Umberto Nobile flew the airship Norge from Spitsbergen to Alaska, crossing the pole at 01:25 GMT on 12 May. Their crossing was confirmed by multiple radio fixes, photographic evidence, and Italian Royal Navy chronometers. Nobody disputed it.

Amundsen’s flight became a footnote because Byrd had got there first. Now, with the diary evidence on the table, it is increasingly clear that Amundsen was actually the first to fly over the pole — and Byrd was simply the first to convincingly say he had.

A Hundred Years Later

None of this diminishes Byrd. The flight itself was extraordinary — sixteen hours over solid pack ice in an aircraft with no de-icing, no autopilot, no diversion airfield, and only celestial navigation. Byrd and Bennett flew to the limit of human and mechanical endurance and returned alive, and that is the story most pilots remember when they think about 9 May 1926.

The pole? Almost certainly Amundsen’s. But the flight? Byrd’s, and worth toasting on its centenary.

Sources: Ohio State University archives, Byrd flight diary 1926, Naval History Magazine, Roald Amundsen biography (Tor Bomann-Larsen).