A resolution repudiating Connecticut's claim that another aviator beat the Wright brothers as first in flight has cleared a committee in the Ohio Senate.The Government Oversight & Reform Committee approved the resolution Wednesday. The measure already cleared the House.
Ohio lawmakers are responding to a 2013 Connecticut law that honored aviator Gustave Whitehead as being two years ahead of Dayton residents Orville and Wilbur Wright's 1903 flight off Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
The Ohio resolution's sponsor suggests Connecticut is changing history without evidence and Ohio must respond. Backers argue aviation historians have examined and dismissed accounts that Whitehead flew a powered, heavier-than-air machine of his own design on Aug. 14, 1901, "or on any other date."
Connecticut Sen. Kevin Kelly wonders why Ohio's leaders "aren't even intrigued."
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