Aviation History – September 12, 1931. The crew made up of pilots Marcel Doret and Joseph le Brix and mechanic René Mesmin took off again, on September 11, 1931, to conquer the straight line distance record, on a world scale, without making any stopovers. A record that the three men had been coveting for some time, but they had already suffered a setback in July 1931 with the destruction of their device.
Having set out confidently for this new attempt, they quickly became disillusioned: in fact, the day after their departure, on September 12, 1931, they were victims of an accident, even though they had already covered 3,000 kilometers. Not far from Ufa, a city located in Russia, their “Trait d’Union”, the baptismal name of their Dewoitine D33 monoplane, will crash. A tragedy which is explained by a malfunction in the fuel supply to the engine and which will prove deadly. Brix and Mesmin will thus lose their lives. Doret, for his part, will get out of this mess thanks to his parachute.
Having flown from New York to Istanbul, a journey of 8,065 kilometers, from July 28 to July 30, 1931, the Americans Russell Boardman and John Polando therefore retain the record.
