Orville Wright was piloting the plane during the first ever fatal aviation accident in 1908, completely surviving the crash while his passenger, a US Army lieutenant, was killed.

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Orville Wright was piloting the plane during the first ever fatal aviation accident in 1908, completely surviving the crash while his passenger, a US Army lieutenant, was killed. Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge volunteered to fly with Wright during a military demonstration of the new flying machine, but a propeller suddenly shattered mid-air, sending them plummeting nose-first into the dirt from an altitude of a hundred and fifty feet. Selfridge fractured his skull on the wooden frame, officially making him the first victim of powered flight, while Wright escaped with just a broken leg and some cracked ribs. In typical military fashion, instead of looking at the shattered corpse of their officer and deciding this airplane business was a terrible idea, the army eventually bought the plane anyway. It really set a phenomenal precedent for the defense industry's legendary tolerance for catastrophic, lethal failure