Lithuania's Consul General in New York, Valdemaras Serapinas, says that although he has not received any official letters, he got an impression from unofficial conversations that the monument seemed a safety hazard for Americans as they had doubts about the height of the wing and the proposed way of securing it.
"Permission of the US Congress is needed to install a monument on the territory of the US federal government. This is the reason why the Darius and Girėnas monument was not allowed," Daphne Yun, spokeswoman for the National Park Service, told the daily.
It has now been decided to instead honor the memory of the Lithuanian pilots by planting a tree at Floyd Bennett Field and unveil a memorial plaque.
A group of Lithuanian artists had wanted to mark the 80th anniversary of the legendary flight by installing two replica wings of Lituanica – one in Vilnius and one in New York.
Lituanica, the plane flown across the Atlantic Ocean by Darius and Girėnas in 1933, was scheduled to land in Kaunas, the Lithuanian capital at the time, but crashed due to undetermined circumstances after successfully flying 6,411km.
The Seimas of Lithuania has named 2013 the Year of Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas Flight over the Atlantic.
