On September 17, Army lieutenant Thomas Selfridge rode along as his passenger, serving as an official observer. A few minutes into the flight at an altitude of about 100 feet (30 m), a propeller split and shattered, sending the Flyer out of control. Selfridge suffered a fractured skull in the crash and died that evening in the nearby Army hospital, becoming the first airplane crash fatality.
The first involving a powered aircraft was the crash of a Wright Model A aircraft at Fort Myer, Virginia, in the United States on September 17, 1908, injuring its co-inventor and pilot, Orville Wright, and killing the passenger, Signal Corps Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge.
In private life, Churchill proposed marriage to Clementine Hozier; they were married in September at St Margaret's, Westminster and honeymooned in Baveno, Venice, and Veverà Castle in Moravia. They lived at 33 Eccleston Square, London, and their first daughter, Diana, was born in July 1909.