Saint-Exupéry’s Crash in the Libyan Desert
Attempting a record flight from Paris to Saigon, Saint-Exupéry crash-landed in the desert west of Egypt and walked for more than three days without water before Bedouin rescued him.
PpPachy · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
On 29 December 1935 Saint-Exupéry and his mechanic André Prévot set out to break the record for the flight from Paris to Saigon. On the night of the 30th, flying over the Libyan Desert, the plane struck a sand ridge and came down. The two wandered the desert with a few grapes, an orange and a thermos of coffee.
After more than three days of walking, seeing mirages through thirst, on 1 January 1936 they met a Bedouin on a camel and were saved. Saint-Exupéry wrote of it in Wind, Sand and Stars (1939), remembering the Bedouin as “beloved”, and the story of an airman come down in the desert became the opening of The Little Prince.
