The project, initiated by photographer Saulius Paukštys, architect Valdas Ozarinskas, and Vilnius Town Hall Master of Ceremonies Saulius Pilinkus, was presented in Vilnius on Tuesday.
"We would like an object, a sign to appear in 2013, preferably in July, in the United States and Lithuania to mark the 80th anniversary of the Darius and Girėnas flight. Undoubtedly, there will be a lot of various events and memorial signs, but this is an initiative by the three of us," Pilinkus told BNS.
"We are convinced that we'll manage to build Lituanica's wings, with one in New York, but we are not sure where to build the second one in Lithuania, in Vilnius or Kaunas," Pilinkus said.
A letter about the project addressed to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on Tuesday handed over to US Culture Attaché Nina Murray.
"If New Yorkers like this idea, perhaps it sounds bold, Lithuanians will definitely like it too," the master of ceremonies of Vilnius Town Hall said.
The sculptures would be 7.5 meters tall and would stand on a flexible link. "It would look like a sail in the wind. As a memory of two wings, two continents, two countries," Pilinkus said.
Lithuanian-American pilots Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas took off in New York bound to Kaunas on 15 July 1933 and flew over the Atlantic on Lituanica, a Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker airplane. After successfully flying 6,411 km, it crashed in the then territory of Germany, due to undetermined circumstances, 650 km from its destination, Kaunas, Lithuania. The flight lasted 37 hours and 11 minutes.
It was the second longest flight in the world at that time.
The Seimas has called 2013 the year of the Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas flight over the Atlantic.
