Fausto Cecconi Bust

Fausto Cecconi’s best-known flight was an endurance trial over a closed course. In 1930, he and Umberto Maddalena kept a Savoia-Marchetti aircraft airborne for more than 67 hours. Navigation, engine management, and the crew’s endurance were all tested.

Cecconi was born in Monterotondo in 1904 and entered the first course of the Italian Air Force Academy. His career developed as the recently established air force used long-distance flights to demonstrate technical capability and military prestige. He also took part in the Italy-to-Brazil air expedition at the turn of 1930 and 1931.

He died on March 19, 1931, when the S.64 aircraft carrying him, Maddalena, and mechanic Giuseppe Da Monte crashed into the sea near Pisa. The loss occurred on a transfer flight. Accounts of the suspected mechanical causes should be distinguished from the firmly documented fact of the accident.

The bust commemorates a short career shaped by the demands of experimental flying. Remembering the mechanic alongside the two pilots restores part of the teamwork that a portrait of a single aviator leaves outside the frame.