Iris Cummings Critchell was an Olympic swimmer believed to be the last living participant of the 1936 Olympic Games, who went on to become a trailblazing aviator in the years that followed.
- Died: January 24, 2025 (Who else died on January 24?)
- Details of death: Died in Carlsbad, California at the age of 104.
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Iris Cummings Critchell’s legacy
In some respects, Cummings, sometimes referred to by her married name, Iris Critchell, was already pushing back against the Nazi regime by the time she was a teenager. After watching the 1932 Summer Olympics, she began training as a swimmer. Success came fast. By 1936, she was national champion in the 200-meter breaststroke, earning an invitation to the 1936 Summer Olympics at just 15 years old. The games were held in Berlin, in front of Adolph Hitler himself, an event made famous in no small part thanks to track and field champ Jesse Owens taking four gold medals home to the U.S. while competing in front of one of the most notoriously bigoted regimes in history.
Cummings came in fourth in the 200-meter breaststroke, returned to the states, and continued to dominate in America through 1939. But by the time she stopped swimming, her eyes had already been turned from the sea to the skies.
She enrolled in the University of Southern California’s Civilian Pilot Training Program in 1939, the same year she quit swimming, and by 1941 she was qualified to become an instructor herself. She joined the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron – later part of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP – and spent the rest of World War II flying a wide array of craft for the 6th Ferrying Group, iconic planes like the P-38, P-51, and P-61 (Black Widow) among them.
After the war, Cummings continued to work as a flight instructor and also threw herself into competitive flying. She won the 1957 All Woman Transcontinental Air Race, then helped establish the Bates Aeronautics Program at Harvey Mudd College, where her students included future astronauts Stanley G. Love and George Nelson. In 1952, she became a member of the Ninety-Nines, a support group for female pilots. She stopped flying professionally in 2016.
Cummings is in the National Flight Instructors Hall of Fame, has been honored with the Nile Gold Medal of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, and was given a Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award by the Federal Aviation Administration, all for her commitment to aviation education and safety.
Notable quote
“I never had a ‘role model.’ I simply learned all I could about the flying experiences of the real women pioneers. There were at least six of them who were flying from the 1929 period on, of whom I had the privilege of working with or flying with or knowing in some activity more than ten years later when I started flying in 1939. Several I worked with after WWII. I held them each in a high level of respect and learned a lot from them.” — interview with Leaders and Legends: Women in Early Aviation
Tributes to Iris Cummings Critchell
Full obituary: The New York Times
