Ralph Greenley Johnstone (September 18, 1880 – November 17, 1910) was the first American person to die while piloting an airplane that crashed.
He and
Archibald Hoxsey were known as the "heavenly twins" for their attempts to break altitude records.
Biography
Johnstone was born on September 18, 1880, in
Parsons, Kansas
Parsons is a city in Labette County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 9,600. It is the most populous city of Labette County, and the second-most populous city in the southeastern region of Kansas. ...
.
[The birth date of September 18, 1880 comes from his July 21, 1904 and September 19, 1905 applications for a United States passport. His March 6, 1902 passport application uses September 18, 1881. His tombstone uses September 18, 1879. The ]Centennial of Flight
{{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation)
A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years.
Notable events
Notable centennial events at a ...
commission erroneously says: "Born 1886, Kansas City, Missouri".
Johnstone started as a
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...
trick bicycle rider who performed a midair forward somersault. He became a
Wright exhibition team
The Wright Exhibition Team was a group of early aviators trained by the Wright brothers at Wright Flying School in Montgomery, Alabama in March 1910.
History
The group was formed in 1910 at the suggestion of balloonist Augustus Roy Knabenshue.
T ...
pilot. On August 17, 1910, he survived a crash at
Asbury Park, New Jersey
Asbury Park () is a beachfront city located on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area.
As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 15,188 .
On October 27, 1910, the International Aviation Tournament was held at the
Belmont Park
Belmont Park is a major thoroughbred horse racing facility in the northeastern United States, located in Elmont, New York, just east of the New York City limits. It was opened on May 4, 1905.
It is operated by the non-profit New York Raci ...
racetrack in