Laura Bromwell, Champion Loop Maker -- June 5, 2021

Twin City Review, 17-June-1921

Laura Bromwell was the first woman in the United States to get a pilot's license after World War One. On 15-May-1921 she set a record by performing 199 loops. On 05-June-1921, while performing stunts, she died in a crash. You will notice that the newspaper item about her looping record is dated weeks after death and more than a month after she set the record. from the Mt Vernon Ohio Democratic Banner, 07-June-1921

LOOP THE LOOP

AVIATRICE DIES

AS SHIP FALLS

Laura Bromwell, One of

Best Known Pilots, Killed

In a Fall

Motor Stopped Causing Plane

To Fall To the Earth;

Other Details

[By Associated Press to The Banner]

MINEOLA, N. Y., June 6 -- Miss Laura Bromwell, holder of the loop- the-loop record for women and one of the best known women pilots in the world, was killed at Mitchell field yesterday afternoon.

Miss Bromwell was flying at an altitude of about 1,000 feet when the accident happened. She had just completed one loop and was about to make a second when something went wrong with the plane and it crashed to the ground.

Miss Bromwell, whose home was in Cincinnati, was 33 years old.

She established her loop-the-loop record on May 15 last, when she executed 199 loops in an hour and 20 minutes. That same afternoon she piloted her airplane over a two-mile straightaway course at the rate of 135 miles an hour.

Military observers who witnessed the flight declared that the girl's airplane motor stopped abruptly as she was making the upward turn of the loop. Suddenly the machine fell back ward into a tail spin and dropped like a plummet onto a road just outside the field.