Flight of the Four Winds

Réplica del Cuatro Vientos en el Museo de Aeronáutica y Astronáutica de España.

The Cuatro Vientos flight was a historic flight during the Second Spanish Republic that crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the first time from Seville (Spain) to Camagüey (Cuba) in 1933 without intermediate stops. After successfully completing the Spain-Cuba trip, the plane disappeared for reasons not yet known when it was flying over Mexico, during the second part of its journey.

Pilots

In 1932, the engineer captain Mariano Barberán y Tros de Ilarduya, born in Guadalajara on October 14, 1895, director of the Cuatro Vientos School of Observers (Madrid) and hero of the Moroccan war, having acquired a recognized prestige as a navigator in preparation for the Plus Ultra flight (the first to cross the Atlantic, but with stops), he conceived the idea of making a non-stop flight from Spain to the Antilles.

Cavalry lieutenant Joaquín Collar Serra, a native of Figueras (Gerona) (November 25, 1906) and professor at the Alcalá de Henares Hunting School (Madrid), was appointed as first pilot, and as second pilot and navigator Barber himself. Sergeant Modesto Madariaga, a native of Corral de Almaguer (Toledo), was chosen to act as ground assistance mechanic. He was an expert on the device to be used in the flight.

The plane

The aircraft was a Breguet XIX GR (Gran Raid) Super-Bidon, sesquiplane, with a 650 horsepower Hispano Suiza 12 Nb 12-cylinder V-engine, developed from the Breguet Bre 19 TR 'Bidon'. It was specially built for the occasion, further expanding the capacity of its large tank, which given its position in the center of the structure was almost equivalent to a complete redesign of the aircraft. They carried 5,000 liters of gasoline in 8 tanks and 200 of oil. It had a closed cockpit and a very complete flight instrument panel with engine instruments, two compasses, an altimeter, variometer, clock, flight integral with anemometer, turn indicator and transverse inclination.

Its dimensions were:

• size: 18,30 m
• length: 10,70 m
• height: 04,08 m
• vacuum weight: 1990 kg
• total weight: 6320 kg
• maximum speed: 230 km/h
• ceiling: 6500 m
• range: 8500 km

In order to lighten the weight as much as possible, they did not carry radio equipment.

Journey

Seville - Havana

On June 8, 1933, they took off from Cuatro Vientos to place the plane at the Tablada aerodrome (Seville), where after careful meteorological preparation, they departed on June 10, 1933 at 04:40. They used 1,500 m of runway for takeoff, almost all of that from Tablada.

The mid-Atlantic crossing was the longest distance ever flown over the sea. They followed the planned route with minimal deviations despite various incidents, such as an indisposition in Collar: Tablada (Seville), Madeira (Portugal), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Guantánamo (Cuba) and Camagüey (Cuba), where 11 of June at 20:45 local time after 39 hours and 55 minutes of flight and 7895 km.

The reception in Cuba was tremendous. The flight was a social event of the first magnitude and the aviators were feted in Cuba's political, social and business circles. In the days that they spent there, Madariaga had to deal with a complicated incident: repairing a crack that appeared in the large central tank. They also had time to visit the Belén Observatory, from where the Jesuit Father Mariano Gutiérrez-Lanza prepared the weather reports. An air traffic controller at the time, Francisco Figueroa, reported that the pilots were advised to suspend the next flight to Mexico for at least 24 hours due to bad weather conditions, although they finally left as scheduled.

Havana - Mexico

The journey to Mexico included a 1,920 km flight that was scheduled to take about 12 hours. On June 20, they took off from Havana at 08:45 for Mexico City and were seen over Ozita at 09:10, Ticul at 10:10, Sabancuy at 10:45, and Carmen at 11:35, near the city of Villahermosa in Tabasco from this position they disappeared.

Although the Cuatro Vientos accomplished its feat in traveling 8,172 miles, its pilots did not live to tell the tale.

Hypothesis about the plane crash

The governments of Mexico and Guatemala deployed numerous search operations and despite the efforts made, they could not find the place where the device fell, a mystery that has given rise to numerous theories and speculations to this day, creating a halo of mystery and legend about what was the end of the Cuatro Vientos and its crew.

Among the most widely considered hypotheses, the one that has gained the most strength over time, at the hands of Spanish and Mexican historians, as well as aviation experts, is that in the middle of a storm that was described as "a storm like few of us have seen at this time" forced the crew to make a forced takeover in the Sierra Mazateca (Oaxaca). In the shot, Barberán, in the front position of the pilot, would surely be badly injured. Collar, in his most protected position, could have been able to go out and seek help. In the search he would come across locals who held them kidnapped for several days, believing that they could steal valuables from them. Finally, perhaps out of frustration, perhaps fearing greater consequences for their actions, the kidnappers murdered the crew of the Cuatro Vientos, which would have been scrapped and buried along with the corpses somewhere in the mountains. If the Mexican authorities came to know these facts, they never dared to admit them to the Government of Spain due to the very serious diplomatic implications. Even today, nothing is known about the end of the Cuatro Vientos.

Despite these bizarre hypotheses, the reality of the disappearance of the Cuatro Vientos was clarified some time before these previously mentioned hypotheses arose.

After almost a month had passed since the disappearance of the Cuatro Vientos, a worker from a farm near the Chiltepec beach found an inner tube, which was sent to the Spanish Embassy in Mexico. The Spanish authorities confirmed that the camera belonged to the Cuatro Vientos, and served as a life preserver in the event of a fall into the sea. The press published the news confirming that the aircraft had been lost at sea, but the sensationalist media had more reception, making the version of the kidnapping and murder of the pilots gain strength.