Martin Model 130

"China Clippers"
Variants/Specifications

The most singular and glamorous of all the Martin designs were the first true intercontinental airliners, the three "China Clipper" flying boats.

Ill fated in the air as on the balance sheet, all three Martin clippers were eventually involved in fatal crashes. In July 1938, the Hawaii Clipper simply disappeared on her scheduled flight between Guam and Manila. The Philippine Clipper managed to survive the Japanese attack on Wake Island just after Pearl Harbor, but in 1943 she hit a mountainside coming in to San Francisco. Appropriately, the China Clipper survived longest. A botched landing off Trinidad in 1945 destroyed the final Model 130, after she had flown more than three million miles.