A Red Arrows pilot was killed when his plane crashed, the first fatality in the RAF’s aeronautical troupe since 1988.
— Aeronautics were once more hazardous. They were pioneered by a San Franciscan, Lincoln Beachey. In 1910 he took flying lessons, crashing on his first and second flights. He went on, in 1911, to entertain crowds by flying over Niagara Falls.
— By 1913 he had earned the nickname ‘the man who owns the sky’. In that year he saw a circus picture depicting a plane flying upside down, and performed the feat for the first time on 24 November 1913.
— The following year he embarked on a 126-city US tour. In one display he accidentally killed a spectator when he swept her off a hangar with his wingtip. Beachey survived until 14 March 1915 when a manoeuvre caused his wings to fall off over San Francisco Bay.
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