Charles Levine; First Passenger to Fly Across Atlantic

Charles Levine, 94, the first person to fly as a passenger across the Atlantic. Levine, a millionaire businessman, owned a 225-horsepower monoplane named Columbia that Clarence D. Chamberlin flew in 1927. Chamberlin had been trying to beat Charles A. Lindbergh as the first person to fly across the Atlantic but a lawsuit by a would-be co-pilot kept his plane in a Long Island hangar when Lindbergh made his flight. Chamberlin later flew Levine and the plane 3,911 miles in 43 hours to Eisleben, Germany. In New York on Dec. 6.