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| GHEORGHE BANCIULESCU AND THE WILL TO SUCCEED 19/09/09 |
| (2009-09-18) |
| Last updated: 2009-09-23 14:38 EET |
There are people who don’t give up even when it seems that destiny itself is set against them. There are people who fight to the bitter end even when everything seems to be lost and there are people who return to the place where they failed, only to prevail and triumph. One such person is Gheorghe Banciulescu, a Romanian military pilot and WWI veteran, the first to fly a plane with two prosthetic legs.
Born in 1898 in Iasi, northern Romania in the family of an infantry officer by the same name, Gheorghe Banciulescu embraced a military career, following in his father’s footsteps.
On August the 16th 1916, Romania entered the war on the side of the Allies, and the young sub-lieutenant, who was not even 18 years old at the time, took part as a combatant in military operations. He fought in the fierce battles in the Jiu gorges, on the Siret river, in Corbu and Marasesti in the summer of 1917. He developed a passion for flying during the war when he used to stare for hours at the planes and zeppelins flown by the warring powers.
In spite of some tradition in the field of aviation, boasting trailbreakers like Traian Vuia, Aurel Vlaicu and Henri Coanda, at that time Romania didn’t have an air force in the real sense of the word. But after the war, the country took important steps in order to develop its aeronautic industry, and the results were to be seen shortly. Banciulescu didn’t have his father consent in his attempt of becoming a pilot, as the latter tried to dissuade his son from embracing a dangerous career. He even arranged with the doctors to convince him that he wasn’t fit for flying. But his father’s efforts were in vain, and the encounter Banciulescu had with veteran pilot Nicolae Tanase was that sparkle that ignited the young man’s desire to fly even more. The experienced pilot told him: ‘I don’t know what you’ll be able to amount to, but a first condition is to love flying! I’ll vouch for you, make you a pilot.” And the young officer proved certain abilities which didn’t disappoin those who pinned their hopes on him.
In 1919, young lieutenant Banciulescu saw his dream come true, taking off on board of a Newport plane. But the event that was to leave a mark on his life happened seven years later, on September the 12th 1926, when Banciulescu and mechanic Ioan Stoica took off on board a Potez plane made available by the Franco-Romanian Air Transport Company, from the Le Bourget airport bound for Bucharest. The flight was a test, the two had to cover the distance between Paris and Bucharest without any stopover, at the same time trying to set a speed record. After the first 1000 kilometers, everything seemed to be OK and the flight was on schedule. But the overcast sky over the Austrian city of Linz prompted the two to try to gain some altitude for better visibility. In spite of Banciulescu’s efforts, the plane crashed into a mountain peak. His colleague, Stoica, was crushed by the engine and died on his way to the hospital; the slightly luckier Banciulescu survived, but the doctors amputated both his legs.
The Romanian pilot further ran the gauntlet of physical and psychological recovery, being transferred from one hospital to another, in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Germany; he eventually had his legs replaced with prosthetic limbs. Banciulescu began a systematic training programme in order to learn how to walk again. He had the full support of his boss, Gheorghe Negrescu, and his friend, Mihai Pantazi. After recovery, Banciulescu was able to return to his life-long love, aviation. He resumed flying, and he even set a record, becoming the first pilot with two artificial legs to fly a plane in July 1927.
In October 1927, French president Louis Barthou awarded the Romanian captain-commander the highest French medal ‘Legion of Honour in rank of knight’. Banciulescu, this Douglas Bader of Romanian aviation, continued to participate in numerous air shows and test flights. His wife, to whom Banciulescu had sworn he would not fly again, found out the truth about her husband’s addiction to flying as late as 1928 at an air show on Baneasa airfield. This iron-willed pilot took up long distance flying in 1933 and covered the distance between Paris-Strasbourg-Nuremberg-Prague-Vienna-Belgrade in a Romanian SET-41 plane.
He faced another big challenge when he was assigned the mission of identifying and establishing air routes over Africa together with French pilots. So Banciulescu, a radio operator and a mechanic were entrusted the latest French twin engine plane, a Potez 9 AB, and on March the 13th 1935 they flew the route Marseille, Naples, Tunis, Benghazi, Tripoli, Wadi, Haifa, Khartoum, El Fasher, Bangossou, Atbara and Cairo. After a difficult trip through heat and desert storms, the three touched down in Cairo. Sadly, the Romanian pilot who had contacted a severe form of tropical flu was unable to recover and passed away on April the 12th 1935 at the age of 37.
This is the story of Gheorghe Banciulescu, the first pilot in history to fly a plane with artificial legs. The second was Russian Aleksei Maresiev, and the third was WWII British officer, Douglas Bader.
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