Name Paul Redfern | ||
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Paul Redfern (13 February 1902 – 25 August 1927 (approximate)) was an American musician and a pilot from Columbia, South Carolina. He became known during the summer of 1927 for attempting to fly from Brunswick, Georgia to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a distance of more than 4600 miles and at that time longer than anyone else had ever flown in one flight.
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Biography
Paul Rinaldo Redfern was born in 1902 to Dr. Frederick S. Redfern. He had as uncles, Richard S. Redfern and Edwin C. Redfern. He married Gertrude Hildebrand in Toledo, Ohio in 1925.
Flight and disappearance
Redfern went missing in 1927 when he attempted to fly from Brunswick, Georgia to Brazil. He was spotted by the Norwegian freighter Christian Krogh a few hours later, after dropping a message asking for the ship to be turned in the direction of the nearest land, and when nearing Venezuela he was spotted by a fisherman just off the coast. He failed to arrive in Rio de Janeiro, and over the years more than a dozen search parties were organized. Missionaries and people visiting tribes living in the jungle reported on a white man living among the Indians, but he was never found and no credible evidence documenting that he somehow survived the flight exists.
In September 1927 George Henry Hamilton Tate, sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, went to look for Redfern. Some believed him to still be alive as late as 1932.
In 1936 Art Williams claimed he found traces of the Redfern crash in British Guyana.
In 1937 the 13th expedition was organized to find out his fate. Now missing for ten years he could be legally declared dead.
In February 1938 Frederick John Fox died while trying to find Redfern. In April 1938 Theodore J. Waldeck believed he found the wreckage of Redfern's plane.
His father died in 1941 still hoping that his son would be found alive.
His widow, Gertrude Hillabrand, died in 1981 and was buried in Detroit, Michigan.