John Alcock (aviator)

Sir John William Alcock (1892-18 December 1919) was, as a Captain in the Royal Air Force together with Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown, the pilot of the first successful non-stop transatlantic flight, from St. John's, Newfoundland to Clifden, Connemara, Ireland which took place on 14 June 1919 departing St Johns' at 1.45 p.m. local time, and landing in Derrygimla bog 16 hours and 12 minutes later after flying 1980 miles (3186 km). The flight was made in a modified Vickers Vimy bomber, and won a £10,000 prize offered by London's Daily Mail newspaper for the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic.

A few days after the flight both Alcock and Brown were knighted by King George V.

Alcock was present at the Science Museum in London on 15 December 1919 when the recovered Vimy was presented to the nation. Three days later he was flying a new Vickers plane, the Viking, to the first postwar aeronautical exhibition in Paris when he crashed in poor weather at Cote d'Everard, near Rouen, Normandy (probably through flying too low while trying to identify his location in the fog). He died before medical assistance could arrive.