{"id":708619,"date":"2026-05-09T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=708619"},"modified":"2026-05-08T10:45:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:45:26","slug":"byrd-bennett-north-pole-1926-josephine-ford-fokker-100-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/byrd-bennett-north-pole-1926-josephine-ford-fokker-100-years\/","title":{"rendered":"North Pole 1926: Did Byrd Actually Make It?"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><p>One hundred years ago today \u2014 9 May 1926 \u2014 a Fokker F.VII trimotor named <em>Josephine Ford<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n<p>And then, decades later, a National Geographic-funded re-examination of Byrd&#8217;s own flight diary suggested something nobody had ever wanted to admit out loud: the maths did not work.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f6f8;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:18px 22px;margin:24px 0;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:15.5px;line-height:1.65\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;color:#333\">Quick Facts<\/p><p style=\"margin:6px 0\"><strong>Pilot:<\/strong> Floyd Bennett (US Navy chief aviation pilot)<\/p><p style=\"margin:6px 0\"><strong>Navigator:<\/strong> Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd, USN<\/p><p style=\"margin:6px 0\"><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Fokker F.VIIa\/3m &#8220;Josephine Ford&#8221; \u2014 three-engine high-wing monoplane<\/p><p style=\"margin:6px 0\"><strong>Departure:<\/strong> Kongsfjorden (Spitsbergen), Norway<\/p><p style=\"margin:6px 0\"><strong>Date:<\/strong> 9 May 1926<\/p><p style=\"margin:6px 0\"><strong>Flight time:<\/strong> 15 hours 57 minutes<\/p><p style=\"margin:6px 0\"><strong>Claimed pole crossing:<\/strong> 09:02 GMT, 9 May 1926<\/p><p style=\"margin:6px 0\"><strong>Modern verdict:<\/strong> Almost certainly turned around 240 km short<\/p><\/div>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1786829971  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/05\/richard-byrd-polar.jpg\" alt=\"Richard Byrd\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Richard E. Byrd in his Navy uniform \u2014 already a celebrated explorer when he set out for the North Pole. Photo: US Navy \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Race to the Pole<\/h2>\n\n<p>By 1926 the North Pole had been reached on foot, by Robert Peary in 1909 (also disputed) and by airship \u2014 Roald Amundsen and Umberto Nobile would fly the dirigible <em>Norge<\/em> over the pole three days after Byrd&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n<p>Byrd and Bennett took off in cold, clear conditions. They flew north on dead-reckoning navigation supplemented by sun shots taken through Byrd&#8217;s bubble sextant. The aircraft&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Diary That Tells a Different Story<\/h2>\n\n<p>For sixty years, Byrd&#8217;s claim was unchallenged. Then in 1996, his sextant book \u2014 which had been in family hands \u2014 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\u00b047\u2032N \u2014 about 240 kilometres short of the pole.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1687814171  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/05\/fokker-f-vii-trimotor.jpg\" alt=\"Fokker F.VII trimotor\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A Fokker F.VII trimotor \u2014 the same aircraft type as the Josephine Ford, the world&#8217;s most reliable long-range aeroplane in 1926. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Byrd&#8217;s defenders point out that the calculation depends on a single, ambiguous diary entry. Byrd&#8217;s critics \u2014 including the explorer Bernt Balchen, who flew with him on later expeditions and openly disbelieved the 1926 claim \u2014 say the timing simply does not work. The Josephine Ford&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Amundsen Got There \u2014 Quietly<\/h2>\n\n<p>Three days after Byrd&#8217;s flight, Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth and Umberto Nobile flew the airship <em>Norge<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n<p>Amundsen&#8217;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 \u2014 and Byrd was simply the first to convincingly say he had.<\/p>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Hundred Years Later<\/h2>\n\n<p>None of this diminishes Byrd. The flight itself was extraordinary \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n<p>The pole? Almost certainly Amundsen&#8217;s. But the flight? Byrd&#8217;s, and worth toasting on its centenary.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Sources: Ohio State University archives, Byrd flight diary 1926, Naval History Magazine, Roald Amundsen biography (Tor Bomann-Larsen).<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One hundred years ago today \u2014 9 May 1926 \u2014 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, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":708600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-708619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Pole 1926: Did Byrd Actually Make It? | MiGFlug.com Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/byrd-bennett-north-pole-1926-josephine-ford-fokker-100-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Pole 1926: Did Byrd Actually Make It? | MiGFlug.com Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One hundred years ago today \u2014 9 May 1926 \u2014 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. 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