Joan Merriam Smith

Joan Merriam Smith (c. 1937–1965) was an American aviator famous for her 1964 solo flight around the world that began and ended in Oakland, California, as she set out to follow the same route as the 1937 flight plan of Amelia Earhart. Mrs. Smith had attempted to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by herself, but another woman, Jerrie Mock, set off during the same week and would complete the task earlier. Already an accomplished pilot asJoan Merriam, she married Lt. Commander Marvin "Jack" Smith, Jr. in 1960.

Smith died at age 28 on February 17, 1965, when the light aircraft that she was piloting out of Long Beach Airport crashed into the San Gabriel Mountains near Big Pine, California, killing her and a magazine writer, Trixie Anne Schubert.

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