On March 17, 1924, four Douglas World Cruisers left Santa Monica, CA, for Seattle, WA, where Boeing exchanged the planes' wheels for pontoon floats. On April 6, the Chicago, New Orleans, Boston, and Seattle took off. On April 30, the Seattle crashed on an Alaskan mountainside, but its two-man crew survived and reached Dutch Harbor after 10 days. The other aircraft continued with the help of 15 extra engines, 14 extra sets of floats, and duplicates of all airframe parts distributed at various sites around the world. On June 26, 1924, they reached Calcutta, India, where the floats were replaced with wheels, and on July 30 the aircraft departed the Orkney Islands in Scotland as seaplanes. On August 3, the Boston made a forced landing in the mid-Atlantic, and the prototyped DWC, renamed Boston II, joined the group so the crew could complete the mission. As landplanes, the remaining three Douglas World Cruisers returned to Seattle, WA, on Sept. 28, 1924, after logging 27,553 miles in six months and six days with an actual flying time of 371 hours. They touched down in 28 countries and crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The flight was the greatest feat in aviation up to that time and earned Douglas Aircraft its motto, "First Around the World".
