Talk about luck.

For more than 30 years Charles Lindbergh’s 1932 Monocoupe D-145 hovered over the Concourse C checkpoint at Lambert-St Louis International Airport (STL).

But just last month, to make way for the relocation of that checkpoint, the plane was lowered to the floor, removed from the airport and put in storage at Missouri’s Mount Vernon Municipal Airport.

According to the owner of the company that moved the plane, “Had it still been inside the St. Louis airport when the tornado blew through last Friday, the plane would have taken a direct hit.”

Lucky, right?

That’s what the folks at the Missouri Historical Society are probably thinking. The organization received the plane from Lindbergh back in 1940 and planned to have it restored and put on display at the Mount Vernon Airport while renovations were underway at Lambert.

The timeline for restoring and returning the plane to Lambert airport may be altered a bit by the aftermath of the tornado, but at least the plane is safe and still around.