Potocki Palace

On November 22, 1919, American pilot Edmund Graves crashed a fighter plane into the headquarters of the American Red Cross. That would have been ironic enough on its own. The Red Cross, however, happened to be operating out of Potocki Palace, one of the grandest private residences in Lviv.

Graves was performing aerobatics to mark the first anniversary of Polish forces taking the city. A volunteer with the Kościuszko Squadron, he was regarded as an exceptionally gifted pilot, though not necessarily a cautious one. During a low-altitude double roll, the right wing of his aircraft broke away, sending the plane into the palace and setting its upper floors and roof ablaze.

It was an especially dramatic fate for a building designed to impress. Count Alfred Józef Potocki had commissioned Parisian architect Louis Dauvergne to create a residence inspired by the grand palaces of France, complete with an imposing courtyard and lavish reception rooms built for aristocratic entertaining. Now, those rooms were being repaired after an American pilot had accidentally flown into them.

Graves was killed in the crash, while restoring the palace stretched on until 1931. The Potocki family later sued the Polish state for compensation and won. More than a century later, the building survives as part of the Lviv National Art Gallery.