People

By Martha Smilgis

"All I did was get lost," says Douglas ("Wrong Way") Corrigan of the 1938 navigational blooper that earned him a place in aviation history. Leading a parade last week in Hempstead, N.Y., to mark the 50th anniversary of the nearby Cradle of Aviation Museum, the chipper Corrigan, now 80, accepted an altimeter symbolizing his famous flight. The young airplane mechanic took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, heading for California in his rickety Curtiss monoplane. With nothing guiding him save his taste for adventure and his temperamental compass, Corrigan landed some 28 hours later in what he thought was Los Angeles. "I've just flown from New York," he called out as he hopped from the plane. "By the way, where am I?" The Irish brogues of the puzzled mechanics swarming around the airplane informed him he was in Dublin, 6,000 miles off course. "I got up in the clouds and flew the wrong way," explained Corrigan, blaming a stuck compass. The folk hero, who now lives in Santa Ana, Calif., gave up his pilot's license 15 years ago. This time, to be sure he would make it back to New York, Wrong Way took the train.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen/New York