Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s fate on his final reconnaissance flight in 1944 was one of aviation’s greatest mysteries, and frequently compared to Amelia Earhart’s disappearance over the central Pacific Ocean. Saint-Exupéry had already been discharged from the air force because of his age, but had continued flying out of a sense of national duty. His last assigned mission was a reconnaissance flight in and around the Rhone valley, to prepare for an Allied invasion of southern France.

Unfortunately, he did not return after taking off from an airbase in Corsica. Speculation over where Saint-Exupéry came down was finally put to rest in 1998, when a fisherman recovered a bracelet of his off the coast of Marseille. Subsequently in 2001, a diver found pieces of wreckage from his plane on the seabed in the area, which were recovered two years later. As the debris field was one kilometre long and 400 metres wide, it was theorised that Saint-Exupéry’s plane had struck the sea’s surface at a high velocity.

To mark the 70^th anniversary of Saint-Exupéry’s final flight, IWC has released the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Edition “The Last Flight”. As we’ve detailed previously, IWC has a longstanding partnership with the estate of Saint-Exupéry, with several special edition watches issued over the past decade. The Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Edition “The Last Flight” is the tenth such timepiece, and marks a return to Saint-Exupéry themed pilot watches after a few featuring the eponymous character of Le Petit Prince, Saint-Exupéry’s best known book.

Three limited editions of the watch are available; the crown, pushers and caseback come in either titanium, red gold, or platinum, with limited runs of 1700, 170 and 17 pieces for each respective variation. Although all IWC special edition timepieces honouring Saint-Exupéry have had their dials in tobacco brown similar to his flight suit, this is the first iteration with a ceramic watch case in the same colour. This colour motif is made complete with a calfskin strap, also in tobacco brown.

Besides its unique ceramic case, the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Edition “The Last Flight” has features differentiating it from the “stock” Pilot’s Watch Chronograph and other special edition pilot chronographs IWC currently offers. Despite the familiar bicompax layout, the watch has no date window at three o’clock. It has, instead, been integrated into the small seconds subdial at six o’clock.

The timepiece is also capable of measuring elapsed time of up to 12 hours with flyback, and both its minute and hour counters have been combined into the subdial at 12 o’clock. The result is a surprisingly pleasing symmetrical dial. Flip the watch around, and you’ll see the engraving on the caseback commemorating Saint-Exupéry’s last flight.

Like many previous occasions, a once-off piece of this watch has been made in platinum. It will be auctioned off in November at Sotheby’s Geneva, with the beneficiary this time being the Hospital Pequeno Príncipe in Curitiba, which is Brazil’s largest children’s hospital. Proceeds from the watch’s auction will go entirely towards a library in the hospital’s recreation area.