On September 17th 1907 US Army first lieutenant Thomas Selfridge was killed.

Selfridge was a passenger in an aircraft piloted by Orville Wright, one of the Wright Brothers, the Wright Flyer. Wright had brought the plane to Fort Meyer to demonstrate it for the US Army Signal Corps, and Selfridge agreed to be the passenger.

Whilst the Flyer was circling the fort, the right propeller broke loose, damaged the rear vertical rudder and then shattered. The plane went into a nose dive and, despite Wright's attempts at recovery, hit the ground nose first. Selfridge suffered extensive injuries and died later that evening, making him the first person to die in a powered aeroplane crash.

Image: Public Domain via Wikicommons (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_selfridge_smoking_pipe.jpg)