Qualla: 1921 SNETA Farman Goliath ditching

1921 SNETA Farman Goliath ditching: Introduction

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

A gendarme on the French coast heard the explosion at 1:32 in the afternoon on 26 August 1921. He looked up in time to see a Farman Goliath - twin-engined, biplane, all canvas and wire - coming apart in the air above the English Channel. The aircraft fell three nautical miles off Calais carrying its pilot, a French Air Force aviator named Paul Delsenne, his mechanic Raymond Rijckers, and a bag of mail from Croydon to Brussels. The mail bag was recovered. The two men aboard were not. It was the first accident the Goliath - the airliner that effectively invented scheduled European air travel - had suffered in civil service.

1921 SNETA Farman Goliath ditching: An Airliner Made for Bombing

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Farman F.60 Goliath had been designed during the First World War as a heavy night bomber. By the time it was ready, the war was over. Henri Farman converted it for passengers - twelve to fourteen seats in two cabins, two open cockpits for the crew, two 260-horsepower Salmson ...

1921 SNETA Farman Goliath ditching: Twelve Twenty-Five from Croydon

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Goliath had lifted off from Croydon at 12:25 that afternoon. Croydon was then London's airport - a grass field surrounded by the brick suburbs of South London, terminal building, signal mast, the modest control architecture of an industry only two years old. The route to Brus...

1921 SNETA Farman Goliath ditching: Telegraph, Telegram, Radio

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The system that responded to the crash was the system that the new aviation industry had not yet built. The gendarme reported by telegraph. Calais picked up the message and passed it to Boulogne and Gravelines. The local fishing fleet, harbour yachts, and even submarines were ord...

1921 SNETA Farman Goliath ditching: The Goliath's Real Record

Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What the SNETA crash marked was the first loss of a Goliath in civilian service. The aircraft type had a remarkable run - more than sixty built, flown by airlines across Europe and beyond, in service well into the 1930s. By the end of the 1920s the Goliath had been replaced on pr...