Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian engineer based in Paris, flew the 14-bis publicly before witnesses and with certification from the Aéro-Club de France in October and November 1906. His flights were the first publicly verified flights in Europe, which explains his enormous weight in Brazilian and European tradition as the "inventor of the airplane." The dispute with the Wrights is not about facts but about criteria: the Wrights flew earlier in technical terms, but in a private setting without international certification; Santos-Dumont flew later but with public, official validation.