Top 10 Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions #1

1) Marie Curie (1867-1934)

Marie Curie

Marie Curie was a physicist and chemist and a pioneer in the study of radiation. She and her husband, Pierre, discovered the elements polonium and radium. Together, they were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, and she received another one, for Chemistry, in 1911. Her work with radioactive materials doomed her, however. She died of a blood disease in 1934.

(via livescience)

2) Otto Lilienthal, the Glider King (1848-1896)

Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the Glider King. He was the first person to make well-documented, repeated, successful gliding flights. He followed an experimental approach established previously by Sir George Cayley. Newspapers and magazines published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favourably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical. He died of injuries sustained when his glider stalled and he was unable to regain control; falling from about 50 ft, he fractured his neck.

(via wiki)

3) William Bullock (1813-1867)

printing press machine

William Bullock was an American inventor whose 1863 improvements to Richard March Hoe's rotary printing press helped revolutionize the printing industry due to its great speed and efficiency. A few years after his invention, Bullock was accidentally killed by his own web rotary press.

(via wiki)

4) Franz Reichelt (1897-1912)

Franz Reichelt with his suit for aviators

Franz Reichelt was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for his accidental death by jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.

(via wiki)

5) Horace Lawson Hunley (1823-1863)

Horace Lawson's submarine

Horace Lawson Hunley was a Confederate marine engineer during the American Civil War. He developed early hand-powered submarines, the most famous of which was posthumously named for him, H. L. Hunley.

After an unsuccessful attempt at building another submarine with McClintock and Watson, which ended in the vessel's sinking in Mobile Bay, Alabama, Hunley funded by himself a third submarine. The first submarine could supposedly reach 4 knots. Five men from the first crew of H. L. Hunley died during early tests when she was accidentally swamped by the wake of a passing ship through her open hatches

On October 15, 1863, though he was not part of the crew, Hunley decided to take command during a routine exercise. The vessel again sank, and this time all eight crew members were killed, including Hunley himself.

(via wiki)

6) Sylvester H. Roper (1823-1896)

automobiles

Sylvester H. Roper was an inventor from Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, and a pioneering builder of early automobiles and motorcycles. In 1863 he built a steam carriage, one of the earliest automobiles. The Roper steam velocipede may have been the first motorcycle, for which he was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002. He is also the inventor of the shotgun choke and a revolver repeating shotgun.

On 1 June 1896, Roper rode one of his later velocipede models, a Pope Manufacturing Company Columbia bicycle with a steam engine added, to the Charles River bicycle track, near Harvard Bridge, Cambridge, Massachusetts where he made several laps, pacing bicyclists there, including professional rider Tom Butler who could not keep up with the steam powered machine.Roper was clocked at 2 minutes 1.4 seconds for the flying mile, for a top speed 64 km/h He was seen to wobble and then fall on the track, suffering a head wound, and was found dead.

(via wiki)

7) Aurel Vlaicu (1882-1913)

Aurel Vlaicu

Aurel Vlaicu was a Romanian engineer, inventor, airplane constructor and early pilot.During his short career, Aurel Vlaicu designed and built one glider and three airplanes of his own design.

Aurel Vlaicu died on September 13, 1913 near Câmpina, on the outskirts of Bănești commune while attempting to be the first to fly across the Carpathian Mountains in his now aged A. Vlaicu Nr. II. He was expected to participate in the ASTRA festivities in Orăștie, near Binţinţi.

(via wiki)

8) Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier: Rozière Balloon (1754-1785)

first manned free balloon flight

Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier was a French chemistry and physics teacher, and one of the first pioneers of aviation. He and the Marquis d'Arlandes made the first manned free balloon flight on 21 November 1783, in a Montgolfier balloon. He later died when his balloon crashed near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais during an attempt to fly across the English Channel. He and his companion, Pierre Romain, became the first known fatalities in an air crash.

(via wiki)

9) Michael Dacre: Flying Taxi Device (2009)

death of Michael Dacre

Michael Dacre, 53, managing director of the British-based company Avcen Ltd, took to the air 150 miles north of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, in his eight-seater 'flying taxi' which he hoped would become commercially available next year.

flying taxi

The inventor of the ‘flying taxi’, Michael Robert Dacre, has died after a newly-assembled Jetpod prototype crashed during a test flight at Tekah airstrip, Taiping.

(via gizmag)

10) J. G. Parry-Thomas (1884-1927)

J.G. Parry-Thomas

John Godfrey Parry-Thomas was a Welsh engineer and motor-racing driver who at one time held the land speed record. He was the first driver to be killed in pursuit of the land speed record.

By 1925 Parry-Thomas realised that commercial success required a higher profile than Brooklands could offer, and switched his attention to the land speed record. He acquired the Higham Special from the estate of the deceased Count Zborowski and rebuilt the car with new bodywork for improved aerodynamics. The car "Babs" was powered by a huge 27-litre Liberty V-12 aero-engine. 

Babs

During the winter of 1926/7 Babs was fitted with yet another new body, partially enclosing the drive and rear wheels by fairings. Parry-Thomas was killed at Pendine Sands on 3 March 1927 while trying to regain his own world land speed record that had been broken just weeks earlier by Malcolm Campbell on the same beach.

(via wiki)