1911 Paris to Madrid air race

The winner was French aviator Jules Védrines, although his win, along with the rest of the race, were overshadowed by a notorious fatal crash at takeoff.

[1] The first stage was to begin at the French airfield at Issy-les-Moulineaux and end 400 km (250 mi) to the south-southwest in Angoulême; the difficult second stage was from Angoulême over the Pyrenees to the seaside Spanish town of San Sebastián; the final leg of about 462 km (287 mi) was from San Sebastián over the Sierra de Guadarrama range to Madrid.

At 6:22, Le Lasseur de Ranssay departed and at 6:30 Louis Émile Train was called to the starting line.

Monis's son, and tycoon and aviation patron Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe, were both injured.

The French Minister of War, Henri Maurice Berteaux, lost an arm and sustained a fatal head wound.