BFI

On Saturday 28 May 1930, an exhausted Amy Johnson landed her biplane Jason at Port Darwin, Australia, after an arduous 20-day journey. 'Johnnie' had become the first woman to fly solo from Britain and was now an international celebrity. This edition of the Topical Budget newsreel records her triumphant return to Britain on 4 August, on the home stretch of an extraordinary publicity tour orchestrated by the Daily Mail.

A 200,000-strong crowd greeted Amy at Croydon Airport - where she had begun her epic journey three months earlier - and she is seen arriving in an Imperial Airways passenger airliner. Jason had been damaged in Australia but has pride of place among the impatient hordes, having been flown home specially; look out for his distinctive registration number, G-AAAH, as he crosses the English coast.

Simon McCallum

This article originally appeared in the BFI Mediatheque.

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