Sigismund Levanevsky
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Sigizmund Aleksandrovich Levanevsky (, ; – 13 August 1937) was a
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
pioneer of long-range flight who was awarded the title
Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union () was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The title was awarded both ...
in 1934 for his role in the SS ''Chelyuskin'' rescue.


Life and career

Sigizmund Levanevsky was born to a Polish family in
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
on . His brother Józef Lewoniewski (1899-1933) was a Polish military and sports pilot. Sigizmund took part in the
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on the
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side and later participated in the Russian Civil War, serving in the Red Army since 1918. In 1925 he graduated from the
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Naval Aviation School and became a military pilot. In 1930 he was withdrawn to reserve. From 1932 to 1933 he was head of flight and training unit of All-Ukraine Pilot School. In 1933 Levanevsky became a pilot for the Glavsevmorput' (Main Northern Maritime Route's Administration) - providing ice reconnaissance for shipping convoys in the eastern part of the northeast passage. At July 20, 1933 he achieved his first international fame, evacuating from Anadyr to Nome the American pilot Jimmie Mattern who had crash landed to the west of Anadyr during his attempt to break the record for a solo flight around the world. The following year Levanevsky and fellow-pilot Mavriky Slepnyov traveled to Alaska to obtain a pair of Consolidated Fleetster 17AF transport planes for use in the aerial rescue efforts for the passengers of the crushed steamship Chelyuskin. During the March 24th flight from Nome, Levanevsky's plane was forced down at Kolyuchin Bay on the north Chukotka coast and during landing its skis were ripped off. Slepnyov evacuated him to the operations base at Vankarem but without a plane Levanevsky did not participate in the rescue efforts. However, he would later shuttle a doctor from
Uelen Uelen is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, rural locality (a ''village#Russia, selo'') in Chukotsky District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East. As of the Russian Census (2010), 2010 C ...
to Saint Lawrence Bay at Chukotka for emergency attention for Bobrov, deputy head of the expedition, who suffered from
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- for which he was awarded the title of the
Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union () was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The title was awarded both ...
. In 1934 he became member of the Communist Party.


North Pole flights

On 3 August 1935 Levanevsky and a two-man crew (co-pilot Georgy Baydukov and navigator Viktor Levchenko) attempted a transpolar flight from Moscow to San Francisco in a prototype single engine
Tupolev ANT-25 The Tupolev ANT-25 was a Soviet long-range experimental aircraft which was also tried as a bomber. First constructed in 1933, it was used by the Soviet Union for a number of record-breaking flights. Development The ANT-25 was designed as the r ...
long-range bomber. A thousand miles into the flight (just north of the Kola Peninsula) the oil tank developed an oil-leak, being overfilled, and Levanevsky chose to abort the mission. In the summer of 1936, Levanevsky and Viktor Levchenko evaluated the air route from
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to
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
, via Alaska and Siberia. The 10,000 mile flight was made in a Vultee V-1AS, though the floats were replaced with wheel landing gear. For this flight Levanevsky was awarded with Order of Red Banner of Labour. On 12 August 1937 a type Bolkhovitinov DB-A (no. N-209, a ''Dalniy Bombardirovshik-Academy'', i.e. Long-range Bomber) aircraft with 6-men crew under captaincy of Levanevsky started its long distance flight from Moscow to the United States (to Fairbanks) via the
North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
. The radio communications with the crew broke off the next day, on the 13th of August, at 17:58
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after the North Pole, when the aircraft encountered adverse weather conditions and suffered failure of its end right engine. The Soviet Government financed two aerial searches for the missing aircraft using purchased US aircraft under the command of Canadian bush and Antarctic pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon in 1937 and 1938. Jimmie Mattern flew a Lockheed 12, "The Texan" from California to assist in the search for his former rescuer in the initial search. After the unsuccessful search attempts all the members of the crew were presumed dead. In March 1999, Dennis Thurston of the Minerals Management Service in Anchorage located what appeared to be wreckage in the shallows of Camden Bay, between Prudhoe Bay and Kaktovik. There was conjecture in the media that it was Levanevsky's aircraft, but a subsequent attempt to locate the object again proved unsuccessful.


See also

*
List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea Nile Kinnick Throughout history, people have mysteriously disappeared at sea. The following is a list of known individuals who have mysteriously vanished in open waters, and whose whereabouts remain unknown. In most ocean deaths, bodies are never r ...


References


External links


Check-Six.com - Missing! - Sigizmund Levanevsky
Alaska Science Forum * {{DEFAULTSORT:Levanevsky, Sigizmund 1902 births 1937 deaths 1930s missing person cases Military personnel from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent Russian people of Polish descent People of the Russian Revolution Soviet military personnel of the Russian Civil War Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents Heroes of the Soviet Union Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Order of the Red Star Personnel of the Soviet Air Force Soviet Army personnel Soviet people of Polish descent Missing aviators Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1937 Explorers of the Arctic Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in international waters