George E. M. Kelly Biography

George Edward Maurice Kelly (11 December 1878 – 10 May 1911) was the twelfth pilot of the U.S. Army's Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps and the first member of the U.S. military killed in the crash of an airplane he was piloting. He was the second U.S. Army aviation fatality, preceded by Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge who was killed while flying as an observer in a Wright Flyer piloted by Orville Wright on 17 September 1908.