US test pilot Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to fly faster than the speed
of sound has died at 97, his wife announced on Monday.

“It is w/ profound sorrow, I must tell you that my life love
General Chuck Yeager passed just before 9pm ET,” Victoria Yeager tweeted
on her husband’s account.

“An incredible life well lived, America’s greatest Pilot, & a
legacy of strength, adventure, & patriotism will be remembered
forever.”

She did not specify the cause of his death.

The aviation legend was a World War II fighter pilot. He laid the
foundation of the US space program when he whizzed past the sound barrier in
the experimental Bell X-1 research aircraft in 1947.

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“It opened up space, Star Wars, satellites,” Yeager said in a
2007 interview with AFP.

His test pilot exploits were later immortalized in the 1983 Hollywood
blockbuster ‘The Right Stuff’.

Born on February 13, 1923 in the tiny town of Myra, West Virginia, he
joined the Army Air Corps three months before US entered World War II. He
started his career as an aircraft mechanic before undergoing flight training.

Most of his career was spent as a military commander directing US
fighter squadrons throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

He retired from the US Air Force in 1975.