history After some tethered trials on September 5 Santos Dumont made his first flight in the airship on September 6. After an hour and a half of trials at the Longchamps racecourse he flew the craft to meet friends at a nearby restaurant, but on attempting to return to his base at Chalais-Meudon a series of mishaps ended with the gondola being damaged. However it was soon repaired and a first attempt at the Deutsch de la Meurth prize was made on September 19, ending when the airship was blown against some trees during preliminary trials, resulting in the envelope being punctured. Another more successful flight was made on October 10, followed by an attempt on the prize the following day, which was frustrated by technical problems. Another successful trial flight followed on the 13th. Further flying was ruled out by the weather until October 19, when Santos-Dumont took off from Saint-Cloud at 2:42 pm. With the wind behind him, he reached the Eiffel Tower in nine minutes, but on the return journey suffered an engine failure. To restart the engine, he had to climb back over the gondola rail without a safety harness. The attempt was successful, and he reached the finish line after 29 minutes 30 seconds. However, there was a short delay before his mooring line was secured, and at first the adjudicating committee refused him the prize, despite de la Meurthe, who was present, declaring himself satisfied. This caused a public outcry from the crowds watching the flight, as well as comment in the press. However a face-saving compromise was reached, and Santos-Dumont was awarded the prize. In a charitable gesture, he gave half the prize to his technicians and donated the other half to the poor of Paris. After winning the De la Meurthe prize Santos-Dumont took the airship to Monte Carlo in January 1902, making use of the newly built balloon shed belonging to the Prince of Monaco on the Boulevard de la Condamine. It was badly damaged on February 14, 1902 when superheating of the hydrogen caused the airship, already in a nose-up attitude, to pitch up even further, causing some of the wires supporting the gondola to break. Some of these then began to get entangled with the propeller. Santos-Dumont was forced to stop the motor and in order to prevent himself being blown out to sea, vented hydrogen to bring the