The SNECMA C.450 Coléoptère (meaning "beetle" in French, descended from Greek for "sheathed wing") was a VTOL aircraft developed by the French company SNECMA in the 1950s. It was a single-person aircraft with an annular wing designed to take-off and land vertically, therefore requiring no runway and very little space. The sole prototype was destroyed on its ninth flight. The Coléoptère first left the ground, on a gantry, in December 1958, with Morel again in the cockpit. After this he made eight successful flights up to a maximum of 800m (2,625 ft). The ninth flight, on 25 July 1959, was planned to make limited moves towards the horizontal but with insufficient instrumentation and a lack of visual benchmarks the aircraft became too inclined and too slow to maintain altitude. Morel was unable to regain control and escaped with an ejection at 150m (492 ft). He survived but was badly injured; the aircraft was destroyed and a planned second prototype did not receive funding.