Albert Jewell

Albert Jewell (1886 – October 13, 1913) was an early US aviator who disappeared off Long Island, New York, on October 13, 1913, en route to Oakwood, Staten Island, in order to take part in The New York Times American Aerial Derby. His last flight was planned to be from the Moisant Aviation School near Hempstead, Long Island to the Oakwood airfield from which the competitors in the race were due to depart. Jewell was flying a Moisant-Blériot monoplane, a version of the Blériot XI built under licence by the Moisant Aeroplane Company, Queens, New York, and, at least according to some reports, powered by a Gnome Lambda 80 hp rotary engine rather than the more normal Gnome Omega, 50 hp. Witnesses observed the aircraft off the south shore of Long Island, apparently being blown out to sea. As Jewell was unable to swim and his only flotation device was the inner tube of a tyre, his chances of surviving a ditching at sea were poor, even if he managed to get clear of the wreckage of his aircraft. Searchers concentrated on Jamaica Bay and the sea off Rockaway Point where Jewell was last sighted. No signs of Jewell or of the wreckage of his aircraft were found.

Several rewards were offered for information which might reveal what accident had befallen Jewell and the location of his remains; $400 by the Aeronautical Society; $300 by the aviator's widow and $250 by the Moisant Aeroplane Company. However, when called upon to identify the body, his widow excluded that possibility, on the basis of the remnants of clothing on the torso. This casts doubt on a report that a "badly bloated and disfigured body" washed up on Fire Island on October 25, 1913, was Jewell's.