First free flight with human passengers
- When
- 21 November 1783
- Where
- Paris
On 21 November 1783 Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes performed the first free flight with human passengers, in a balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers.
A few weeks after the tethered ascents, the first free flight with human passengers was made on 21 November 1783. Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes flew in a balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers; this is described as the first untethered manned hot air balloon flight in the world, performed in Paris. King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but de Rozier and d'Arlandes petitioned successfully for the honor.
Sources
- Hot air balloon Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-26
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.