Charles Albert Levine (March 17, 1897 – December 6, 1991) was the first passenger aboard a

transatlantic flight A transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, Africa, South Asia, or the Middle East to North America, Central America, or South America, or ''vice versa''. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing air ...

. He was ready to cross the Atlantic to claim the

Orteig prize The Orteig Prize was a reward offered to the first Allied aviator(s) to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris or vice versa.Bak. Pages 28 and 29. Several famous aviators made unsuccessful attempts at the New York–Paris flight before the rel ...

but a court battle over who was going to be in the airplane allowed

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...

to leave first.

Biography

Levine was born on March 17, 1897, in

North Adams, Massachusetts North Adams is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its population was 12,961 as of the 2020 census. Best known as the home of the largest contemporary ...

. He joined his father in selling scrap metal, later forming his own company buying and recycling

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

surplus brass shell casings. By 1927, at age 30, he was a millionaire.

Columbia Air Liners, and the record flights

Levine and

Giuseppe Mario Bellanca Giuseppe Mario Bellanca (March 19, 1886 – December 26, 1960) was an Italian-American aviation pioneer, airplane designer and builder, who is credited with many design firsts and whose aircraft broke many aviation records. He was inducted into t ...

formed the Columbia Aircraft Company. Levine hired pilots

Bert Acosta Bertrand Blanchard Acosta (January 1, 1895 – September 1, 1954) was a record-setting aviator and test pilot. He and Clarence D. Chamberlin set an endurance record of 51 hours, 11 minutes, and 25 seconds in the air. He later flew in the Span ...

Erroll Boyd James Erroll Dunsford Boyd (November 22, 1891 – November 27, 1960) was a pioneering Canadian aviator. He was known as the "Lindbergh of Canada" before becoming an American citizen in 1941. Biography James Erroll Dunsford Boyd, known to his fa ...

, John Wycliff Isemann, Burr Leyson, and Roger Q. Williams at $200 a week to perform a series of publicity record attempts for the company. Levine entered the competition for the

for the first person to complete a nonstop flight from New York to Paris. His

Bellanca AviaBellanca Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft design and manufacturing company. Prior to 1983, it was known as the Bellanca Aircraft Company. The company was founded in 1927 by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, although it was preceded by p ...

designed prototype aircraft, named '' Columbia'', was ready for weeks, The co-pilot for the effort, Lloyd W. Bertaud, was displaced to accommodate Levine and went to court to be reinstated. Levine got the order lifted just hours after

, in the

Spirit of St. Louis The ''Spirit of St. Louis'' (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlant ...

, had left

Roosevelt Field Roosevelt Field is a former airport, located east-southeast of Mineola, Long Island, New York. Originally called the Hempstead Plains Aerodrome, or sometimes Hempstead Plains field or the Garden City Aerodrome, it was a training field (Hazel ...

on Long Island. Levine's plane was still in its hangar at the same airport. Lindbergh won the prize on May 20, 1927. The following day Levine announced that his airplane would fly farther on a $15,000 transatlantic flight challenge from America to Germany and carry a passenger. The pilot was

Clarence Chamberlin Clarence Duncan Chamberlin (November 11, 1893 – October 31, 1976) was an American pioneer of aviation, being the second man to pilot a fixed-wing aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to the European mainland, while carrying the fir ...

, and Levine would be the passenger. In an oft-repeated ploy, Levine told his wife he was just going up for a test flight. His lawyer notified her by a letter of his intentions after they took off and kept going. On June 4, 1927, the Columbia took off on its transatlantic flight from America to Berlin, Germany with Levine as the first passenger to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. The Columbia landed 100 miles short of Berlin in a field at

Eisleben, Germany Eisleben is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is famous as both the hometown of the influential theologian Martin Luther and the place where he died; hence, its official name is Lutherstadt Eisleben. First mentioned in the late 10th century, ...

. The trip was 315 miles (507 km), and 9 hours 6 minutes longer than Lindbergh's transatlantic crossing. Levine returned to the United States in September 1927, flown by Captain Walter G. R. Hinchliffe replacing Chamberlin. Before their departure, Levine and Hinchliffe appeared in a short film made at

Clapham Studios The Clapham Studios were a British film studios of the silent and early sound eras, located in Clapham in London. The studios were built at Cranmer Court under some railway arches, opening in 1913. Several companies used the studios during their ...

in London made in the DeForest

Phonofilm Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s. Introduction In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film proce ...

sound-on-film system. Bertaud separately vowed to complete a transatlantic flight without Levine. In September 1927, Bertaud's Hearst-financed Fokker monoplane ''

Old Glory Old Glory is a nickname for the flag of the United States. The original "Old Glory" was a flag owned by the 19th-century American sea captain William Driver (March 17, 1803 – March 3, 1886), who flew the flag during his career at sea an ...

'' crashed in the Atlantic on the attempt, killing Bertaud and the other two men on the flight. While Levine was in France following the record flight from New York,

Mabel Boll Mabel Boll (December 1, 1893 – April 11, 1949), known as the "Queen of Diamonds", was an American socialite involved in the early days of record-setting airplane flights in the 1920s. She garnered nicknames from the press, including "Broadwa ...

"the Queen of Diamonds" tried to persuade him to fly her to America in the Columbia. Levine had plans to fly it back to America with a French pilot,

Maurice Drouhin Maurice may refer to: People *Saint Maurice (died 287), Roman legionary and Christian martyr *Maurice (emperor) or Flavius Mauricius Tiberius Augustus (539–602), Byzantine emperor *Maurice (bishop of London) (died 1107), Lord Chancellor and Lo ...

. The flight to America was cancelled. Drouhin was owed a $4,000 cancellation fee and had the Columbia guarded against leaving as a precaution. The inexperienced pilot Levine took off for England, claiming to the guards he was just testing the engine. Boll followed Levine to England by boat, talking Levine into letting her be a passenger. Just before the flight, Levine's new pilot Capt. Hinchcliffe, publicly refused to let Boll fly along. Boll was invited to try an east-west flight from America, and she set out for New York by boat in January 1928. In the summer of 1928 Levine purchased a customized long-range

Junkers W 33 The Junkers W 33 was a German 1920s single-engine low-wing monoplane transport aircraft that followed Junkers standard practice making extensive use of corrugated aluminium alloy over an aluminium alloy tube frame, that was developed from the s ...

for

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

50,000, emblazoned "Queen of the Air" across the sides, for Boll's nickname. Plans were made for

to fly Boll and Levine from Paris to New York for a new record, which was changed to a London–New York attempt. The flight was never made. "The Queen of the Air" Junkers was transported back to America, damaged, and resold to William Rody for another transatlantic attempt.

Decline

After a series of bad business investments and losses in the

stock market crash A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a major cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic selling and underlying economic factors. They often foll ...

of 1929, Levine was sued by the federal government for a half-million dollars in back taxes. In 1930, his Columbia Air Liners Inc. built the "Uncle Sam," a large aircraft having range to fly around the globe. It performed poorly, logging only twelve flights. The "Uncle Sam" and two other company planes were auctioned off in 1931 for $3000 for back hangar rent. It was destroyed days later in a hangar fire with the instruments and engine removed beforehand. Levine was already missing at the time of the auction with a warrant for his arrest alleging he had stolen stock. In 1930, Levine was arrested in the company of Mabel Boll for attempting to purchase dies to produce counterfeit 2-

franc The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...

coins. Levine was arrested in 1932 on a charge of violating the

Workmen's Compensation Workers' compensation or workers' comp is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee's right to sue his or her emp ...

Law, and he received a suspended sentence but was arrested again in 1933 on a counterfeiting charge that was later dismissed. In 1934, after his release, he was charged with illegally smuggling a

German-Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

refugee from a Nazi concentration camp into the United States and spent 150 days in jail. That same year, he attempted suicide using a gas range.''Rochester Evening Journal''. September 12, 1934 He was the father of two children: Eloyse Levine and Ardith Levine Polley. He divorced their mother in 1935. In 1937 Levine was charged with smuggling 2,000 pounds of

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isol ...

powder from Canada. He served two years in federal prison and was fined $5,000. In 1944, $209.56 was paid with the rest of the fine still owed to the court. The Assistant United States Attorney on November 18, 1958, deemed the debt to be uncollectible, and the case was closed. On December 6, 1991, Levine died at

Sibley Memorial Hospital Sibley Memorial Hospital is a non-profit hospital located in The Palisades neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and is licensed by the District of Columbia De ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

age 94.

References

External links

Charles Albert Levine bibliographyYiddish Radio Project: Charles Levine
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Levine, Charles Albert American Jews People from North Adams, Massachusetts 1897 births 1991 deaths American businesspeople convicted of crimes Businesspeople from Massachusetts 20th-century American businesspeople

Biography

Columbia Air Liners, and the record flights

Decline

See also

Further reading

References

External links