A transpacific flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Pacific Ocean from Australasia, East and Southeast Asia to North America, Latin America, or vice versa. Such flights have been made by fixed-wing aircraft, balloons and other types of aircraft.

Though less common than transatlantic flights, transpacific flights have been commercially available since the mid-1930s and have been used for transport of cargo and passengers across the Pacific Ocean. The time and distance of transpacific flights are longer than transatlantic flights, thanks to the much broader width of the Pacific. The first transpacific flight occurred in 1928, nine years after the first transatlantic flight in 1919.

In 1927, Ernie Smith and Emory Bronte attempted the first civilian transpacific flight bound for Maui, Hawaii starting from Oakland, California. The duo "flew 25 hours and two minutes at 6,000 feet in a single-engine Travel Air 5000 monoplane, but ran out of gas and safely crash-landed on Molokai". A memorial was constructed to mark "the historic end to the first civilian transpacific flight".^[1]

In 1935, the beginning of commercial transpacific flights to and from California began operation. On 22 November 1935, "Pan American Airlines' China Clipper launched its first transpacific flight, covering a distance of 8,000 miles". A large "Martin M-130 seaplane departed from Alameda, in the Bay Area, and island-hopped to Oahu, Midway Island, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines before arriving in Canton, China, with a cargo of mail". A year later, passenger flights using the same route were inaugurated by Pan American. California became the undisputed national leader of transpacific flights.^[20] For the next year, Pan American planned for passenger flights, the China Clipper and its sister ships, the Philippine Clipper and Hawaii Clipper, focused on cargo transport including mail across the Pacific during this time. The route was ready for passenger service by October 1936.^[21]

In November 1981, the first successful transpacific balloon crossing was made in the balloon Double Eagle V. It launched from Nagashima, Japan on November 10, 1981, and landed in Mendocino National Forest in California 84 hours and 31 minutes later, covering a record 5,768 miles (9,283 km). ^[22] The four-man crew consisted of Albuquerque balloonists Ben Abruzzo, Larry Newman, and Ron Clark, and thrill-seeking restaurateur Rocky Aoki, who helped fund the flight. After crossing the Pacific the helium-filled Double Eagle V, weighed down by ice and buffeted by a storm, crash-landed in northern California, ending the nearly 6,000-mile flight. No one was hurt.^{[23] [24]}

On February 21, 1995, aviator Steve Fossett was the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon from South Korea to Leader, Saskatchewan.^[25]

On 25 January 2015, pilots Troy Bradley and Leonid Tiukhtyaev flying the Two Eagles Balloon, surpassed the Double Eagle II duration record and Double Eagle V distance record after traveling 6,075 miles (9,777 km) across the Pacific.^[26][27]

In 2015 and 2016, Solar Impulse 2 made a transpacific crossing while attempting to circumnavigate the world. The plane landed in Mountain View, California after three days of continuous flying from Hawaii.^[28] The pilots only slept 20 minutes at a time, and the plane's cockpit had no heating or air conditioning. ^[29] The plane was piloted by two Swiss pilots: Bertrand Piccard, a psychiatrist, and André Borschberg, an engineer and entrepreneur. ^[26]

• Transatlantic crossing