There was no national Weather Service in Ireland 70 years ago. For several weeks, as the crew of the Bremen waited at Baldonnel for the right conditions to begin their epic flight across the North Atlantic, they were in frequent telephone contact with the British Meteorological Office in London. Then on April 11th, 1928, they heard the news they had been waiting for, and Bremen took to the air at dawn the following morning.
Weather conditions for the first half of the journey were pretty near ideal, and the aircraft made its way placidly through the large, shallow area of low pressure that dominated the eastern half of the Atlantic. Col James Fitzmaurice afterwards described their progress in these words: "Quite a fair degree of sunshine continued during the day, being occasionally blanked out by heavy banks of cloud. It all presented a most majestic sight, and as we glanced at the great circular horizon we gained an immense appreciation of the huge vastness of this mighty ocean space. Here and there, ahead and to the left and right of us, high downpours of rain gave the appearance of vast solid columns reaching up from the ocean surface to support the sky. Several isolated snowstorms looked like giant marble pillars fulfilling a similar function. It all presented the appearance of an interior view of a high-vaulted, domed and arched cathedral of colossal proportions, the whole illuminated by giant sunshafts flooding through great apertures in the massive sides and ceilings."
Conditions deteriorated, however, as the Bremen approached the coast of Newfoundland. "The sun seemed suddenly to disappear behind what we assumed was an extremely high mountain range in the far distance. But as darkness approached, we soon realised that what we thought was a mountain range was in fact a very dangerous jet-black bank of cloud, reaching to over 20,000ft." While negotiating the cloud and heavy rain associated with this unexpected trough, Bremen experienced difficulties from ice accumulation on the airframe. But it survived, and later on this day 70 years ago, the frail aircraft crash-landed in blizzard conditions on Greenley Island in the St Lawrence Estuary. "In the centre of the island was a large frozen pond. As we neared its edge, we switched off the engine, eased the control column gently back, and dropped straight on to the ice; it broke, and left the aircraft standing on its propeller, the tail of the machine towering vertically above us. We shook hands, congratulating ourselves on our luck, and proceeded to force our way out on to the ice." The "Everest of aviation" had been conquered.