Latécoère 25

The Latécoère 25 was a French airliner built in 1925 for use on Latécoère's own airline and its subsidiaries. Essentially a refined version of the Latécoère 17 with an enlarged wingspan, it supplanted that type in production and then in service. As Lignes Aériennes Latécoère increasingly shifted its emphasis from carrying passengers to carrying airmail, the Latécoère 25 found its definitive role as a mail plane, and was widely used in establishing the line's South American services. Airlines which operated the type included Aeroposta Argentina. Like the Latécoère 17, it was a conventional parasol-wing monoplane with enclosed seating for passengers and an open cockpit for the pilot.

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• Alta gama tv 37 lat co re 25
• Survivors
• Specifications
• References

One Latécoère 25 was involved in a celebrated incident when it made a forced landing high in the Andes. Hitherto, flights between Buenos Aires and Santiago made a 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) detour to avoid the mountains. On 2 March 1929, while searching for a safe route across the range, a Latécoère 25 piloted by Jean Mermoz was caught in a downdraft and forced down onto a plateau just 300 metres (986 ft) across at an altitude of 4,000 metres (13,123 ft). With his mechanic Alexandre Collenot and passenger, Count Henry de La Vaulx, Mermoz spent the next four days repairing and lightening the aircraft and making a clear path from it to the edge of the precipice. He then rolled it off the edge, diving to attain airspeed, and successfully reached Santiago.