One-hundred years after the Wright brothers' first flight, an attempt to re-create the moment failed Wednesday when a replica craft couldn't get off the ground and sputtered into the mud.
The muslin-winged flyer dropped off the end of a wooden track and stopped dead in a muddy puddle. Pilot Kevin Kochersberger dropped his head in apparent chagrin and later laughed as the plane was hoisted back on the track.
If anything, this shows just how precarious that first flight was. Imagine how different the world would be if, 100 years ago, the Wright brothers' flight had met with a similiar fate and resigned themselves to failure. Fortunately, the brothers were intent, and their invention changed travel as we know it.
In related news, today's reenactment wasn't the only
failure at Kill Devil Hills, today.