Claims to the first airplane flight

The Wright Brothers were the first to achieve sustained, controlled, powered heavier-than-air manned flight in 1903, the longest of four covering 852 feet (260 m). Several other aviators have claimed to be the first to fly a powered aeroplane. Much controversy surrounds these claims.

In Brazil, the native citizen Alberto Santos-Dumont is taught as the inventor of the airplane, with his flights of 60 meters and 220 meters in 1906 fully documented in France. In 2013 the Connecticut, US, legislature adopted a bill naming Gustave Whitehead as the first to fly, a claim he made in 1901, later challenged by profound problems of documentation and contradictory witness statements.

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