Jean-Francois Pilâtre de Rozier was a chemist born in the French town of Metz in 1734. In 1783, while Rozier was teaching physics in Paris, he witnessed the first manned balloon flight staged by the famous Montgolfier Brothers. Rozier was bitten by the aviation bug and began doing his own experiments. In November 1783, he traveled 12 kilometers in a Montgolfier balloon, reaching an altitude of 3,000 feet.

Rozier would go on to conduct several more flights. But it was on this date in 1785 that he would meet his destiny.

Rozier had determined to make the first trans-Atlantic crossing in a balloon. The Montgolfier balloon wasn’t capable of such a task. So Rozier designed a hybrid gas and hot air model. On June 15, Rozier and a companion took off from Boulogne-sur-Mer. For a while they made progress. But then the wind direction changed and the balloon was pushed back to Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais within 5 kilometers of its starting point. Suddenly, the balloon deflated and crashed to the ground. Both occupants were killed.

Jean-Francois Pilâtre de Rozier thus became the first victim to die in an aviation accident. The balloon he designed is still known to this day as the Rozier balloon.

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