Two teams of aviators competed to be the first to fly over the North Pole in May 1926. American Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett claimed victory on May 9 when they circled the North Pole in a Fokker Trimotor named Josephine Ford. On May 11, in spite of his disappointment, Norwegian explorer Ronald Amundsen launched the dirigible Norge on its planned flight, not merely over the pole, but all the way across the Arctic to Alaska. Amundsen reached Alaska on May 14, but even today experts suspect that faulty navigation caused Byrd to miss the North Pole.
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