On 17 September 1908 at Fort Myer, Virginia, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge became the first person to die in a powered airplane crash – he was 26.   Read newspaper reports about the accident   Selfridge was a passenger on a plane (‘the Wright Flyer’) that was piloted by Orville Wright – reports say that the cause of the crash was a broken propeller. To mark this sad day, here is a newspaper story – published on 19 September 1908 – …