page_title: Alberto Santos-Dumont
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Alberto Santos-Dumont / Later years
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), pionnier brésilien de l'aviation, en 1922&#160;: négatif sur verre, épreuve retouchée et recadrée. English: Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), Brazilian aviation pioneer. Picture taken in 1922: glass negative, restored and cropped print.
context_page_description: Alberto Santos-Dumont was a Brazilian inventor and aviation pioneer, one of the very few people to have contributed significantly to the development of both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air aircraft.
  The heir of a wealthy family of coffee producers, Santos-Dumont dedicated himself to aeronautical study and experimentation in Paris, where he spent most of his adult life.
  In his early career he designed, built, and flew hot air balloons and early dirigibles, culminating in his winning the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize on 19 October 1901 for a flight that rounded the Eiffel Tower.
  He then turned to heavier-than-air machines, and on 23 October 1906 his 14-bis made the first powered heavier-than-air flight in Europe to be certified by the Aéro-Club de France and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
  His conviction that aviation would usher in an era of worldwide peace and prosperity led him to freely publish his designs and forgo patenting his various innovations.
  Santos-Dumont is a national hero in Brazil, where it is popularly held that he preceded the Wright brothers in demonstrating a practical airplane.
context_section_description: Santos-Dumont's final flight as a pilot was made in a Demoiselle on 4 January 1910. The flight ended when a bracing wire snapped at an altitude of about 25 m (80 ft), causing a wing to collapse. Santos-Dumont suffered only bruises.
  In March 1910 Santos-Dumont announced that he was retiring from aviation. He secluded himself in his house and it was rumoured that he was suffering from a nervous breakdown caused by overwork, but it is probable that he was depressed about the multiple sclerosis from which he was later known to suffer.
  In 1911 he moved to the French seaside village of Bénerville (now Benerville-sur-Mer), where he took up astronomy as a hobby. After the outbreak of war in 1914 his German-made telescope and unusual accent led to accusations he was a German spy tracking French naval activity, and his rooms searched by French police. Upset by the allegation and depressed about his illness Santos-Dumont burned all his papers and plans.  For this reason there is little direct information available about his designs today. He spent much of the 1920s in Swiss and French sanatoria, though returning to Brazil at times.
  For his arrival in Brazil on the luxury liner Cap Arcona in 1928, a dozen members of the Brazilian scientific community boarded a seaplane with the intention of paying him a flying welcome. The plane crashed with the loss of all on board; Santos-Dumont's growing despondency deepened even further, and he returned to Switzerland.
caption: 1922
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