In 1992, Brehm and Kühnel constructed a 8-dimensional simplicial complex M 8 15 with 15 vertices as a candidate to be a minimal triangulation of the quaternionic projective plane. They managed to prove that it is a manifold "like a projective plane" in the sense of Eells and Kuiper. However, it was not known until now if this complex is PL homeomorphic (or at least homeomorphic) to HP 2 . This problem was reduced to the computation of the first rational Pontryagin class of this combinatorial manifold. Realizing an algorithm due to Gaifullin, we compute the first Pontryagin class of M 8 15 . As a result, we obtain that it is indeed a minimal triangulation of HP 2 .
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