Latecoere 631

The Latecoere 631 is a French six-engine flying boat built by the aircraft manufacturer Latecoere, first flown in 1942 and intended as one of the largest civilian transatlantic airliners of its era, developed to carry a large complement of passengers on long-distance routes between France and its overseas territories. Built with six engines to give it the range and payload capacity needed for scheduled transatlantic service, the Latecoere 631 entered limited commercial operation after the Second World War, but the type suffered several serious accidents, including in-flight structural failures, that undermined confidence in the design and contributed to its withdrawal from service after a relatively short operational career. Its ambitious scale reflected a broader postwar belief, later proven mistaken, that very large flying boats rather than land-based airliners would dominate future long-distance civil aviation.