 They were attempting to break the speed record for a Paris-to-Saigon flight in a then-popular type of air race called a "raid", that had a prize of 150,000 francs.Their plane was a Caudron C-630 Simoun, and the crash site is thought to have been near to the Wadi Natrun valley, close to the Nile Delta.Both miraculously survived the crash, only to face rapid dehydration in the intense desert heat.