Harriet
Quimby
1875-1912
Born in rural Michigan, her
family had moved her to California by the
time she was a teenager. She tried stage acting and then spent several
years as a theater critic in San Francisco before she tried her hand at
aviation. She soon proved to be a naturally skilled flyer.
In 1911 Harriet Quimby became the first
woman licensed as
a pilot in America. On April 16, 1912, she became the first woman to
fly a plane across the English Channel.
While
flying at an airshow outside Boston with the event organizer, her
plane unexpectedly flipped over, throwing them both out of the open
cockpit and plummeting to their deaths. Seat belts had only been invented the year before and most pilot didn't have them.
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Aviatrices killed in plane crashes