First Aerial Crossing of the South Atlantic, 1922 (Memory of the World)

In 2011 UNESCO inscribed in the Memory of the World Register the reports of the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic, carried out in 1922 by Carlos Viegas Gago Coutinho and Artur de Sacadura Cabral. What stands out is not the aircraft — although the Santa Cruz seaplane is preserved in Lisbon — but the handwritten and printed documentation that describes, day by day, one of the most daring undertakings of early twentieth-century aviation. Alongside the Letter of Pêro Vaz de Caminha and the Diary of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama, these documents form part of the Portuguese set recognised for bearing witness to decisive moments in the historical relationship between Portugal and the Atlantic world.

The flight from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro

On 30 March 1922, Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral took off from the Tagus, at Belém, aboard the Lusitânia seaplane. The journey, conceived to mark the centenary of Brazil’s independence, was made in stages: Lisbon, Las Palmas, São Vicente in Cape Verde, the rock of São Pedro and São Paulo, Fernando de Noronha, Recife and, finally, Rio de Janeiro, reached on 17 June. In all they covered about 8,383 kilometres, with more than sixty hours of actual flight.

The crossing required three Fairey aircraft. The Lusitânia made an emergency landing near the rock of São Pedro and São Paulo and was rendered unusable; the next aircraft, the Pátria, suffered an engine failure in the open ocean, forcing the aviators to await rescue at sea. Only with the third craft, the Santa Cruz, was it possible to complete the undertaking, in an episode that combined technical boldness, skill and enormous tenacity.

An innovation in aerial navigation

For the first time, an oceanic crossing was guided solely by the crew’s own means, without the aid of terrestrial reference points or external support.

The flight’s most enduring contribution was scientific. Gago Coutinho perfected a sextant equipped with an artificial horizon, an instrument that made it possible to measure the altitude of the stars even in the absence of a stable horizon line, the usual condition in flight over the sea. Combined with a course corrector, this device made astronomical navigation possible aboard an aircraft, anticipating principles that would go on to shape the transoceanic aviation of the following decades.

The documentary value

The two reports — one written by Gago Coutinho, the other by Sacadura Cabral — record navigation observations, calculations, atmospheric conditions and the unfolding of each stage. Preserved by the Portuguese Navy, in the Historical Archive of the Navy and in its Central Library, they constitute a first-rate source for the history of aeronautics and of the navigational sciences.

The inscription in the Memory of the World recognises precisely this documentary character: it does not merely celebrate the feat, but ensures the preservation and dissemination of the written testimonies that set it down. Part of the body of Portuguese World Heritage and documentary memory, the listing recalls that the 1922 adventure was, above all, a rigorous exercise in method and record-keeping.