New York to Buenos Aires in 16 Days: The Daring Adventure of a Young Family’s Intercontinental Flight in a Single-Engine Plane

In 1956, Robert and Meryl Wells followed their dream to fly a small, single-engine Cessna from New York to their home in Buenos Aires, a distance of about ten thousand miles. With their children, three-year-old Susie and six-month-old Bobby, the intrepid couple set off on an unforgettable, intercontinental journey that took them over oceans, jungles, deserts, and the magnificent Andes mountains. The adventure included a night in the Colombian jungle with a drug cartel, emergency landings in the middle of nowhere, the unexpected generosity of the Peruvian military, threading the needle between two large ships off the coast of Chile, and flying blind through wing-bending turbulence around the mighty Aconcagua. They arrived in Buenos Aires after sixteen days of flying, becoming the first known family to make the epic journey in a single-engine airplane.