The first seaplane took off from water at Martinques, France. The pilot was
Henri Fabre. The first autonomous flight by a hydroplane was made by the French engineer Henri Fabre on
March 28, 1910. A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.
Seaplanes that can also take off and land on airfields are a subclass called amphibian aircraft.