.   The first person to successfully fly a powered airplane was Orville Wright, on September 17, 1903. It only lasted 12 seconds, but that was long enough to prove that th … e Wright Brothers, Orviille and Wilbur, had succeeded in inventing the first successful airplane.he first ex-president to fly  in an airplane was Theodore Roosevelt, who flew as  a pass … enger in a 4-minute flight in one of the early Wright  biplanes on October 11, 1910, a year after he had left office. + 31 others found this useful. Jeff Kempf.