Eugène Lefebvre 1878 1909

Eugène Lefebvre was born at Corbie (France) on the 4th October 1878 and died during a flight test at Juvisy on the 7 September 1909 and was the first pilot to die at the controls of an aircraft.

Reims, August 1909 : Six 'French owned' Wright machines were on the field, including one flown by Eugène Lefebvre, a pilot of just two months and trained by Orville Wright himself. When the weather broke late on the soggy opening day. the pilots organized a flyby of seven aircraft, at the time, the most machines ever in the air at once. But it was Lefebvre who stunned the crowd with "a series of daring evolutions before the grandstand, almost touching the banners on the roof," the Times reported.

Eugène Lefebvre, Reims, August, 1909.