Did Clement Ader make the first flight even before the Wright brothers? Clement Ader invented in the late 1890s, a plane that looked like a bat. It had a steam engine. Witnesses said it went airborne at least once and recorded a distance just over 50 meters. The Wright brothers made their first controlled flight in 1903.
Lots of people flew before the Wright Brothers.  Some of them even survived!
The Wright Brothers are credited as inventors of the airplane not because they flew, but because they were the first to take flight in a vehicle which:

Lifted itself using its own power (which gliders and kites did not)
Was aerodynamically controllable by the pilot (which Ader's aircraft was not)
Remained in sustained flight, rather than taking momentary flight before returning to Earth