வானத்தில் பிறந்த முதல் பெண் குழந்தை AIRLENE 1929 அக்டோபர் 26 ,மியாமி ,பிளோரிடா
First Airplane Baby, Born in 1929, Named Airlene
Fokker TrimotorOn 26 October 1929, a baby girl was born in an airplane flying above Miami, Florida.
It was no accident. Dr. Thomas W. Evans and his wife Margaret D. Evans had chartered a Fokker trimotor for the very purpose of having the first air-born baby.
They took off from the 1-year-old Pan American Field (now Miami International Airport). The pilot was C. W. Swinson. Also on board were doctors, nurses, a co-pilot and the baby’s maternal grandmother.
The plane circled the Dade County Courthouse at 1,200 feet during the birth, which occurred 20 minutes after takeoff. The plane then flew over Biscayne Bay for several minutes before landing. Mother and baby were transported to the hospital.
The story of the first airplane baby made headlines across the country. The parents received dozens of baby name suggestions, including “Airogene, Airlene, Biscayne, Pan Skymiss, Skylove, Sephrine and countless others.”
What name did they pick?
Aerogene, according to the first two sources I found. One source was an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics publication from three decades ago; the other was a book on aviation history from 1983. But I couldn’t find any vital records or other documents to confirm it.
Then I spotted the name Airlene Evans in a December 1946 issue of the Miami Daily News. It belonged to a student at Miami Senior High. The airplane baby would have been 17 at the end of 1946…could this be her?
Yes, I think so. A document I discovered via the Miami-Dade County Clerk’s website suggests that Thomas W. and Margaret D. Evans had two children named Airlene and Thomas.
It is not very common for babies to be born while flying at 36,000 feet, but it has happened a few dozen times since humans first took flight. The first midair birth on record actually dates all the way back to 1929. Since it is pretty rare, when a baby does enter the world while in the air, it is generally a newsworthy event for a plane to land with one more passenger than it had when it took off. Shona was particularly delighted, though, to unearth the story of the first such baby; she found it in an obscure clipping from a Florida newspaper dating back to OCTOBER 26, 1929. “The father was an airplane enthusiast, and a doctor whose wife was heavily pregnant, so when she felt she was about to give birth, they got into his plane and kept circling at 2,000 feet until she gave birth,” says Shona. “They called her Airleen.
French Airplane Baby, b. 1922, Named Guynemer
Guynemer, Providence News, 1922Many moons ago, I wrote about Airlene. She was born in an airplane in 1929.
Many of the sources I consulted for that post explicitly stated that Airlene was the first baby born in an airplane. I hadn’t seen any contradictory evidence at the time, so I assumed this was true.
Just the other day, though, I discovered that a French baby had been born in an airplane in the summer of 1922 — seven years earlier.
The French baby was the son of Madame Georges Breyer of Lyon. She was staying at a seaside resort in Southern Italy when she went into labor. She chartered a plane northward to Naples, and gave birth 40 miles south of Naples and 6,000 feet over the Mediterranean.
She said she would name the baby Guynemer, in honor of famous French military aviator Georges Guynemer.
This news was printed in papers all over the U.S. for a day or two. Then…nada. No follow-up, no interviews, no extra details. I’ve had no luck tracking down the mom, the baby, or even the Breyer family of Lyon — at least not in any of the English-languages sources I’ve checked. (Anyone want to do a quick search of French or Italian sources for me?)
As far as I know, Airlene is still the first U.S. airplane baby. But it looks like Guynemer could be the world’s first airplane baby, if this story checks out.
I’ll let you know if/when I have any updates…
Source: “Boy Born in an Airplane 6000 Feet Above the Sea.” Providence News 1 Jul. 1922: 1.
Airplane Baby Born in 1931 Named After Lindbergh
planeAirlene of Miami may have been the first baby born in an airplane, but Lindbergh of Manitoba was probably the first baby to be born unexpectedly in a airplane. He was also likely the first baby to be born while flying over Canada.
A pregnant Mrs. Alex Miller had been riding the Hudson Bay Railway in Canada on 29 March 1931 when it was decided that she should be rushed to The Pas, Manitoba, for the delivery of her child. So she was loaded into a Fairchild monoplane owned by the Royal Canadian Air Force and piloted by Flight Lieutenant A. L. McPhee.
But the baby did not want to wait. He was born 15 minutes into the flight at an elevation of 4,000 feet.
He was named Lindbergh Wright Cook Miller. The first name honors aviator Charles Lindbergh, who in 1927 became the first person to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic. No explanation was offered for Wright, but I think it’s plausible that it was inspired by the Wright brothers.
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