Aviation History – August 10, 1896. On this Monday, August 10, 1896, Germany mourns the death of one of its famous pioneers in the air, in the person of Otto Lilienthal. A member of the Berlin Air Navigation Company, he died in an accident while testing a glider, having taken the controls himself. A drama whose causes are to be found on the side of weather conditions.
Indeed, Otto Lilienthal was seriously injured due to a gust of wind: he will thus lose the upper plane of his glider, a gust having overturned his device. This accident will break his spine, but he will not be killed instantly, dying the same day at the Bergmann clinic in Berlin, where he had been taken to try to save him.
This is one flight too many for Otto Lilienthal, who a day earlier had already had an accident while testing a biplane-type glider, but that did not bother him and on August 10, 1896, he resumed the way to heaven but it will be for the last time unfortunately.
