On July 31, 1944, the poet and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry took off in an unarmed Lockheed P-38 Lightning on a reconnaissance mission from an airbase on Corsica. The last radar echo of his aircraft was reported at 8:30 over the Mediterranean, near the French coasts, and the author of Le Petit Prince is believed to have died at that time.
In May 2000, Luc Vanrell, a professional diver, found the partial remains of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning spread over thousands of square metres of the seabed off the coast of Marseille. The discovery galvanized the country, which for decades had conducted searches for his aircraft and speculated on Saint-Exupéry's fate. Eventually, the remnants of the aircraft were recovered in October 2003.
Today, the Aquatimer Automatic Edition “35 years Ocean 2000” accompanies Luc Vanrell for a dive of over forty metres, following in the footsteps of Saint-Exupéry and his Lightning P38.
IWC Schaffhausen has worked closely with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s descendants since 2005 and also has a solid commitment to the Fondation Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
