December 31 – Aviation History

December 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment

1999 – Fear of the Y2K computer bug and possible in-flight consequences for those planes flying during the night of December 31, 1999, and the early morning of , 2000, spreads around the airline industry.

1989 – First Flight: Su-30

1985 – Singer-songwriter and actor Ricky Nelson and six others die in the crash of a Douglas DC-3 near DeKalb, Texas.

1972 – Puerto Rican Major League Baseball star Roberto Clemente and all four other people aboard a Douglas DC-7 die when the plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off Isla Verde just after takeoff from San Juan, Puerto Rico. He had chartered the plane to carry aid to Nicaragua after a major earthquake there.

1968 – A Vickers Viscount aircraft departed from Perth, Western Australia for a flight of 724 nautical miles (1 341 km) to Port Hedland. The aircraft crashed 28 nautical miles (52 km) short of its destination with the loss of all twenty-six people on board. More than half of the right wing, from outboard of the inner engine to the wingtip, including the outer engine and its propeller, broke away from the rest of the aircraft in flight and struck the ground a significant distance from the main wreckage. Investigation by the Australian Department of Civil Aviation and British Aircraft Corporation concluded that a mysterious action during maintenance led to extensive fatigue cracking in the right wing spar.

1967 – The Royal Air Force’s V-bomber force begins to be dismantled, pending the deployment of the Polaris missile aboard Royal Navy submarines to act as Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

1967 – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) begins initial talks to develop guidelines for a re-usable spaceplane.

1951 – The year-end tally showed that for the first time, total passenger flying miles exceeded that of railroad miles at 10.6 million.

1944 – Entered Service: Grumman F8F Bearcat with the United States Navy

1944 – University Air Training Squadrons were disbanded.

1943 – Japanese Rabaul-based aircraft raid U.S. forces off Arawe, losing four aircraft.

1943 – Since mid-December, when they began staging through Tarawa Atoll, U.S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberators have dropped 601 tons (545,227 kg) of bombs on the Marshall Islands.

1943 – Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden Kai (“Violet Lightning Modified”), Allied reporting name “George”

1942 – (Overnight) Guided by an Oboe-equipped Mosquito, eight Pathfinder Force Avro Lancasters bomb on sky markers suspended by parachute for the first time in a raid on Düsseldorf. Bomber Command previously had employed only ground markers, and the new capability allows British bombers to bomb through ten-tenths cloud cover.

1942 – During 1942, the U.S. Army Air Forces’ Eleventh Air Force has destroyed at least 50 Japanese aircraft in the Aleutian Islands campaign in exchange for the loss of 12 aircraft in combat and almost 80 to other causes. Japanese non-combat aircraft losses in the Aleutian Islands have been equally high. Since October 1, Eleventh Air Force aircraft have dropped 500,000 pounds (226,799 kg) of bombs on Japanese bases in the Aleutians.

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December 30 – Aviation History

December 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2007 – TAROM Flight 3107 was a charter flight operated by a Boeing 737-300 that during the takeoff procedure, hit a service car carrying out repair work on lighting equipment on the runway at Henri Coandă International Airport in Otopeni, Romania.

1978 – First Flight: General Avia Canguro I-KANG.

1972 – President Richard M. Nixon orders a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam as the North Vietnamese show a renewed interest in peace negotiations.

1970 – Jeanne Holm became the first female General in the United States Air Force, also the first of that rank in any military branch.

1968 – The world’s first supersonic transport aircraft to fly, the Tupolev Tu-144, took to the air, powered by four Kuznetsov NK-144 turbofans.

1962 – Four Avro Canada CF-100 squadrons with No. 1 Air Division: Nos. 419, 423, 440 and 445 Squadrons – were disbanded.

1951 – The year-end tally showed that for the first time, total passenger flying miles exceeded that of railroad miles at 10.6 million.

1950 – A Royal Australian Air Force CAC Wirraway crashes into a crowded beach at Maroochydore in Queensland, Australia, killing three children and injuring 14 other people on the beach. The two-man crew survives the crash.

1947 – First Flight: Mikoyan-Gurevich I-310, prototype of the MiG-15

1946 – A United States Navy PBM Mariner supporting Operation Highjump crashes at Thurston Island, Antarctica, during a blizzard, killing three of the nine people on board. The six survivors are rescued 13 days later by aircraft from the U.S. Navy seaplane tender USS Pine Island (AV-12).

1946 – RCAF (Women’s Divison) was dissolved.

1945 – Five top scoring Canadian fighter pilots of WWII: F/L GF Beurling, DSO, DFC, DFM – 31 victories. S/L HW McLeod, DSO, DFC and Bar – 21 victories. S/L VC Woodward, DFC and Bar – 21 victories. F/O WE McKnight, DFC and Bar – 16 victories. G/C RW McNair, DSO, DFC and 2 Bars – 16 victories.

1945 – RCAF strength had now been reduced to 58,047 from 181,235 a year previous.

1946 – No. 426 (Transport) Squadron was disbanded.

1942 – (30 – 31) U.S. Army Air Forces and U.S. Navy aircraft drop 42,000 pounds (19,051 kg) of bombs in a night raid on Kiska, but the Japanese trick them into bombing a wrecked hulk instead of a newly arrived, fully loaded transport. They do damage some midget submarines and destroy a Nakajima A6M2-N (Allied reporting name “Rufe”) floatplane fighter on the water in exchange for the loss of four aircraft.

1922 – A Deutsche Luft-Reederei Dornier Komet became the first German aircraft to fly over Britain since the end of World War I.

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December 29 – Aviation History

December 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

1994 – The Turkish Airlines Flight 278: A Boeing 737-4Y0 Mersin, crashes in driving snow while on approach to Van Ferit Melen Airport in Van, Turkey, killing 57 of the 76 people on board.

1991 – China Airlines Flight 358, a Boeing 747-2R7F cargo plane, crashes shortly after takeoff from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, after the number three engine and its pylon break off the right wing and strike the number four engine, breaking it off as well. The entire crew of five dies. The Boeing Company subsequently recalls all Boeing 747s for pylon modifications.

1986 – First Flight: Scaled Composites AT³

1978 – Freddie To makes the first flight of a solar-powered aircraft, the Solar One

1974 – A Tarom Antonov AN-24 (registered YR-AMD) flying from Bucharest to Sibiu, crashes into the side of the Lotrului Mountains, killing all 28 passengers and 5 crew members. The crash is blamed on the crew incorrectly executing the approach, which led to the aircraft drifting off course by 20 km in turbulent conditions.

1972 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 1 jet that crashed into the Florida Everglades on the night, causing 101 fatalities (77 initial crash survivors, two died shortly afterward). The crash was a result of the flight crew’s failure to recognize a deactivation of the autopilot during their attempt to troubleshoot a malfunction of the landing gear position indicator system. As a result, the flight gradually lost altitude and eventually crashed, while the flight crew was preoccupied with solving that problem. It was the first crash of a wide-body aircraft and at the time, the deadliest in the United States.

1949 – Entered Service: Lockheed F-94 Starfire with the United States Air Force

1948 – First Flight: Supermarine Type 510

1944 – F/L RJ Audet, flying a Supermarine Spitfire of No. 411 (Fighter) Squadron near Rheine, Germany, destroyed five enemy fighters in his first combat.

1940 – (Overnight) – The Luftwaffe makes a devastating attack on London, making extensive use of incendiary weapons.

1939 – First Flight: Consolidated XB-24, prototype of the B-24 Liberator

1938 – (29-31) A German Arado Ar 79 training and touring aircraft sets an international long-distance record for an aircraft of its class, flying 6,303 km (3,917 statute miles) from Benghazi, Libya, to Gaya, India, nonstop at an average speed of 160 km/hr (99 mph).

1937 – A Spanish Nationalist counteroffensive against Republican forces during the Battle of Teruel begins with the support of German aircraft of the Condor Legion. The Condor Legion has had to redeploy in order to support the counteroffensive, and its personnel are becoming weary of the constant changes of front required by Nationalist military operations.

1936 – Compañía Aeronáutica Uruguaya S.A. (CAUSA) founded by the Uruguayan banker Luis J. Supervielle and Coronel Tydeo Larre Borges. Its initial fleet is two Junkers Ju 52 floatplanes, which begin service between Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1933 – The Imperial Airways Avro Ten Apollo (G-ABLU) strikes a radio mast and crashes at Ruysselede, Belgium, killing all 10 people on board. King Albert I of Belgium will award Camille van Hove, who is hospitalized with serious burns suffered while trying to rescue victims from the airliner’s wreckage, the Civic Cross (1st Class).

1931 – First Flight: Hawker Audax

1931 – First Flight: Grumman FF

1927 – Georg Wulf, co-founder of Focke-Wulf, is killed in the crash of the Focke-Wulf Fw 19.

1921 – Edward Stinson and Lloyd Bertaud set a world endurance record of 26 hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds flying a BMW-engined Junkers-Larsen over Roosevelt Field.

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December 28 – Aviation History

December 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2010 – Antonov An-22 RA-09343 of the Russian Air Force crashed at Krasny Oktaybr, Russia killing all twelve crew. The aircraft was on a positioning flight from Voronezh Airport to Tver-Migalovo Airport.

2001 – USA3000 Airlines began operations.

1997 – United Airlines Flight 826, a Boeing 747-100, encounters severe clear-air turbulence over the Pacific Ocean two hours after takeoff from Narita International Airport, Tokyo, Japan, bound for Honolulu International Airport in Honolulu, Hawaii. A female passenger is fatally injured, and the plane turns back to land to Narita.

1988 – First Flight: Let L-610 OK-130

1988 – McDonnell Douglas F-15E dual-role fighters go into operational service at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.

1988 – An analysis of the wreckage of the Pan Am Boeing 747, which crashed at Lockerbie, Scotland a week ago, reveals that a bomb had been planted in the jet’s luggage hold.

1978 – United Airlines Flight 173 crashes in Portland, Oregon. The DC-8-61 (registered N8082U) aborted its landing due to a problem when attempting to drop the landing gear. While investigating the issue in a holding pattern for an hour, the cockpit crew failed to monitor the remaining fuel, of which they ran out. Ten were killed of the 189 on-board.

1975 – The Soviet Union commissions the “heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser” Kiev, the first Soviet or Russian ship capable of operating fixed-wing aircraft. A hybrid ship combining a partial angled flight deck with the heavy antiship missile armament of a Soviet guided-missile cruiser, she operates only vertical or short takeoff and landing (VSTOL) jets and helicopters.

1968 – After a hijacking on an El Al jet in Athens the previous July, Israeli commandos execute a surprise attack on Beirut Airport, destroying 13 civilian aircraft belonging to the Lebanese carriers Middle East Airlines (former Air Liban which had merged with MEA), Trans Mediterranean Airways, and Lebanese International Airways. This temporarily cripples the Lebanese airline industry. Lebanese International Airways later merged with MEA.

1961 – First RCAF Bomarc missile unit, No. 446 (SAM) Squadron, was formed at North Bay, Ontario.

1951 – Entered Service: Grumman F9F Cougar with the United States Navy

1948 – Minister of National Defence, Brooke Claxton, outlined an expanded defence program which included an increase in personnel, reconditioning of air stations and development and production of jet fighters.

1948 – The Douglas DC-3 NC16002 disappears on a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Miami, Florida, with the loss of all 32 people on board.

1943 – American aircraft based at Tarawa strike Nauru.

1938 – First Flight: Blackburn Botha

1936 – Deutsche Werke lays the keel of Germany’s first aircraft carrier, designated Carrier A, at Kiel. Later renamed Graf Zeppelin, she will never be completed.

1934 – During the Chaco War, a Macchi M.18 flying boat of the Paraguayan Navy’s aviation arm carries out the first night bombing raid in South America, attacking Bolivian positions at Vitriones and Mbutum.

1929 – First Flight: Mitsubishi B2M

1926 – Imperial Airways begins flying passengers and mail between England and India.

1910 – French aviator Alexandre Laffont and Spanish passenger Mario Pola are killed at Issy-Les-Molineaux shortly after taking off in an attempt to fly to Belgium with two passengers. Their Antoinette monoplane collapses in midair.

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December 27 – Aviation History

December 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2006 – 2006 Morecambe Bay Helicopter Crash was a fatal air incident that occurred at approximately 18:40 GMT, whilst replacement crew were being transported between the Millom and Morecambe gas platforms situated approximately 24 miles from the shoreline of Morecambe Bay, Lancashire, England.

1992 – USAF F-16 Fighting Falcons shoot down an Iraqi Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 in Southern Iraq’s “no fly zone”

1991 – Ice breaks off the wings and is sucked into both engines of Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751, a McDonnell Douglas MD-81 with 129 people on board, causing both engines to shut down just after the aircraft lifts off from Stockholm, Sweden. The plane makes an emergency landing in a field near Gottröra. There are no fatalities, but 92 of the people on board are injured.

1985 – Members of the Abu Nidal Organization launch coordinated attacks at airports in Italy and Austria. Four gunmen open fire at the El Al and TWA counter at Leonardo Da Vinco-Flumicino Airport in Rome, killing 16 and injured nearly 100 others. At the same time, 3 men do the same at Vienna International Airport while people were getting ready to board a flight to Israel, killing 3 and injuring 40. Of the 7 shooters, 4 were killed and the others arrested.

1982 – John Leonard ‘Jack’ Swigert, Jr., American astronaut, dies (b. 1931). Swigert was one of three astronauts aboard the ill-fated Apollo 13 moon mission, which was launched on April 11, 1970. Originally part of the backup crew for the mission, he was assigned to the mission just days before launch, replacing astronaut Ken Mattingly.

1979 – Primetime soap opera Knots Landing premieres on television. After downloading their 344 episodes from 14 seasons, I didn’t witness one landing.

1972 – The U.S. Marine Corps loses a fixed-wing aircraft over Vietnam for the last time.

1968 – Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending humanity’s first manned mission to the Moon.

1968 – North Central Airlines Flight 458, a Convair CV-580, crashes into a hangar at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, while attempting a go around in poor weather at night, killing 27 of the 45 people on board and killing one and injuring six people on the ground.

1966 – First Flight: Aeritalia G91Y

1951 – First Flight: North American XFJ-2B, prototype of the FJ-2 Fury

1949 – US carriers American Airlines and TWA begin coast-to coast coach-class flights with 60-passenger DC-4s, charging US $110 one-way.

1942 – First Flight: Kawanishi N1K1-J Shiden (“Violet Lightning”), Allied reporting name “George”.

1942 – First Flight: Mitsubishi Ki-67 Hiryu (“Flying Dragon”), Allied reporting name “Peggy”.

1941 – No. 404 (Coastal Fighter) Squadron provided air support for a Commando raid on Vaagso, Norway.

1941 – (27-28) 132 British bombers attack Düsseldorf, Germany.

1936 – United Airlines Trip 34, a Boeing 247D, crashes at the head of Rice Canyon in Los Angeles County, California, killing all 12 people on board.

1935 – The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) drops bombs with the intention of diverting a lava flow from Mauna Loa, Hawaii to avoid water contamination.

1922 – Hōshō, Japan’s first aircraft carrier is commissioned. She is the world’s first aircraft carrier designed and built as such to be commissioned.

1919 – First Flight: Boeing Model 6, Boeing’s first commercial design.

1773 – George Cayley was born. As a Pioneer of early aviation regarded by many as the father of flight. His glider had taken his coachman on the first manned flight in 1853.

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December 26 – Aviation History

December 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2005 – At around 6:00 p.m. local time, a Piper Aztec, registration N444DA, bound for Providenciales International Airport on the island of Providenciales crashes in shallow water off the coast of South Caicos in the Turks and Caicos Islands. All four people on board (the pilot and three passengers) die.

1989 – United Express Flight 2415 operated by a BAe Jetstream 31 N410UE of North Pacific Airlines was a commuter flight in the United States from Yakima, Washington to Pasco, Washington. The aircraft was approaching Tri-Cities Airport at around 22:30. The crew executed an excessively steep and unstabilized ILS approach. That approach, along with improper air traffic control commands and aircraft icing, caused the aircraft to stall and crash short of the runway. Both crew members and all four passengers were killed.

1989 – First Flight: NAMC N-5

1982 – First Flight: Antonov An-124 (“Condor”)

1980 – Aeroflot puts the Ilyushin Il-86 into service on its Moscow-Tashkent route.

1975 – The Tupolev Tu-144 goes into service in Soviet Union.

1972 – (26–29) Operation Linebacker II continues. On 117 B-52 Stratofortresses attack Hanoi in the largest air assault in the Vietnam War to this time.

1971 – (26–30) The United States conducts Operation Proud Deep Alpha, which consists of air strikes in three provinces of North Vietnam south of the 20th Parallel.

1968 – Two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine attack El Al Flight 253, a Boeing 707, with a submachine gun and hand grenades as it prepares to depart Athens, Greece, killing one passenger and seriously wounding a flight attendant before being arrested.

1967 – The Soviet Union commissions its first helicopter carrier, Moskva.

1965 – American air strikes in South Vietnam and Laos resume.

1961 – The first missile squadron of the RCAF, No.446 Surface/Air Missile Squadron was formed in North Bay.

1956 – First Flight: Convair YF-106A, prototype of the F-106 Delta Dart

1952 – Wisconsin Central Airlines changes its name to North Central Airlines, and moves its headquarters from Clintonville, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1948 – I. V. Fedorov becomes the first Soviet pilot to break the sound barrier. He achieves the necessary speed by diving his Lavochkin La-176 jet, powered by a Rolls-Royce Nene engine, at full throttle.

1944 – RCAF provided 61 Halifax heavy bombers in a 270-plane raid on St. Vith, France.

1943 – 70 to 80 Japanese Rabaul-based aircraft attack U.S. ships supporting the day’s U.S. landing at Cape Gloucester, sinking a destroyer and damaging two others. Minor raids follow on the next two days.

1943 – (26-27) Japanese Rabaul-based aircraft raid U.S. forces off Arawe.

1942 – Kawasaki Ki-78

1939 – The first Royal Australian Air Force squadrons to join the war arrive in Great Britain.

1935 – General Rodolfo Graziani requests permission from Benito Mussolini to use poison gas against Ethiopian forces. He receives it, and during the last few days of December Italian aircraft begin dropping mustard gas on Ethiopian troops around the Takkaze River and on the village of Jijiga. Italian planes will drop poison gas for the remainder of the war, and continue to use it against Ethiopian guerrillas after the war ends.

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December 25 – Aviation History

December 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2009 – Northwest Airlines Flight 253, operated by Airbus A330-323E N820NW is subjected to an attempted terrorist attack. The terrorist, Nigerian Islamist Abdulfarouk Umar Muttalab, is overpowered by other passengers and is arrested when the aircraft lands at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.

2003 – UTA Flight 141, a severely overloaded chartered Boeing 727-223, fails to become airborne during its takeoff attempt from Cadjehoun Airport in Cotonou, Benin. It runs off the end of the runway and crashes on a beach along the Bight of Benin, killing 151 of the 163 people on board. All 12 survivors as well as two people on the ground are injured. Newspaper reports create rumors that the Boeing 727 involved is N844AA, which had disappeared after being stolen in May, but the rumors prove unfounded; the accident aircraft is 3X-GDO.

1999 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 310: A Cubana de Aviación Yakovlev Yak-42 crashes into a mountain near Bejuma, Venezuela killing all 22 on board.

1997 – Children in North and South American receive their toys late when, due to an inoperative APU and an ingrown hoof-nail on Blitzen, Santa Claus’s sleigh (registered N0EL) loses its ETOPS status. The glitch forces the sleigh to take a more northerly route over the Atlantic and make additional tech-stops in Shannon, Ireland and Keflavik, Iceland.

1986 – Iraqi Airways Flight 163 is hijacked by four men in-flight, where multiple hand grenade explosions forced the aircraft to crash, killing 63 of the 106 on-board. The 737-270C registered YI-AGJ went down in Saudi Arabia on a flight from Baghdad to Jordan.

1981 – United States Air Force Lieutenant Thomas Tiller is rescued out of the Atlantic Ocean after his F-4 Phantom crashed a week prior.

1979 – Antonov An-12s and An-22s airlift the first Soviet troops into Afghanistan. 5,000 arrive in the first 24 hours.

1976 – EgyptAir Flight 864 was a flight from Cairo International Airport to Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok. The Boeing 707 on the route crashed into an industrial complex in Bangkok. All 52 persons on board were killed, plus 19 on the ground in the crash. Pilot error was determined to be the cause of the crash.

1972 – The United States begins a 36-hour pause in the bombing of North Vietnam.

1968 – Apollo 8 performs the very first successful Trans Earth Injection (TEI) maneuver, sending the crew and spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth from Lunar orbit.

1966 – (25-26) The United States conducts a 48-hour standdown of air operations over Vietnam for the Christmas holiday.

1965 – Hoping to begin peace talks with the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration orders a cessation of American air strikes in Vietnam.

1959 – Michael P. Anderson, astronaut, was born (d. 2003). Anderson was a United States Lieutenant Colonel (USAF), a NASA astronaut, and the Space Shuttle payload commander of STS-107 (Columbia) who was killed when the craft disintegrated after reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

1954 – BOAC Boeing 377 Stratocruiser G-ALSA crashes on landing at Glasgow Prestwick Airport, killing 28 of the 36 passengers and crew on board.

1946 – Nicknamed “Black Christmas”, three passenger planes, all flying in from Chongqing, China, crash due to fog in separate incidents in Shanghai, China, killing at least 62 of the combined 68 passengers and 9 crew members aboard. Two of the planes belong to China National Aviation Corporation and one to Central Air Transport.

1940 – Two British Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Grumman Martlets of 804 Naval Air Squadron shoot down a German Junkers Ju 88 off Scapa Flow. It is the first aerial victory in Europe by an American-made aircraft in history and the first by any variant of the Grumman F4F Wildcat.

1934 – French pilot Raymond Delmotte sets a new world speed record for landplanes of 314.33 mph, flying a Caudron 460.

1914 – HMS Empress, HMS Engadine, and HMS Riviera launch a seaplane attack on the Zeppelin sheds at Cuxhaven. It is the first attempt in history to exert sea power on land by means of the air. Fog prevents the aircraft from reaching their target, and only three of the nine aircraft find their way back to their mother ships.

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December 24 – Aviation History

December 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

1999 – Five gunmen hijack Indian Airlines Flight 814, an Airbus A300 with 188 other people on board, over India during a flight from Kathmandu, Nepal, to Delhi, India. The plane lands at Amritsar, India, to refuel, but takes off again without refueling before security forces can immobilze it. It then refuels at Lahore, Pakistan, and flies on to Dubai, where the hijackers release a mortally wounded man they had stabbed and 27 other passengers. The hijackers then force the plane to fly to Kandahar International Airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where, after several days of negotiations, they release all the remaining hostages on December 31 in exchange for the release of three senior Islamic fighters held by India.

1996 – The 1996 New Hampshire Learjet crash which led to a 3-year search for the missing aircraft, and legislation requiring stricter ELT standards.

1994 – Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by four Islamic terrorists while on the ground in Algiers. The Airbus A300 registered F-GBEC sits on the ground for two days before departing to Marsielle, where the French military would be allowed to participate. There, soldiers storm the aircraft, freeing all of the hostages and killing all four hijackers. The firefight and one explosive that went off left the aircraft damaged beyond repair. Three hostages had been killed by the hijackers over the previous days.

1989 – Major combat operations in Operation Just Cause conclude.

1971 – Flying in a thunderstorm and severe turbulence, LANSA Flight 508, a Lockheed L-188A Electra, is struck by lightning and disintegrates in mid-air high over Puerto Inca in eastern Peru’s Amazon rainforest, killing 91 of the 92 people aboard. The only survivor is 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke, who survives a 2-mile (3-km) fall into the rainforest strapped in her seat, her fall cushioned by the foliage, and walks for 10 days before finding help; 14 other people also survive their falls from the plane but die in the jungle without being rescued.

1968 – Apollo 8 orbits the moon carrying Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed 10 lunar orbits and broadcast live TV pictures that became the famous Christmas Eve Broadcast, one of the most watched programs in history.

1966 – A Canadair CL-44 chartered by the United States military crashes into a small village in South Vietnam, killing 129.

1964 – Flying Tiger Line Flight 282, which had departed out of San Francisco International Airport on its way to JFK, New York, crashes into Sweeney Ridge in San Bruno, Calif. killing all three crew members. The Lockheed Constellation, registered N6915C, deviated from its flight plan for an unknown reason where downdraft activity and turbulence prevented the aircraft from climbing.

1963 – New York International Airport is rededicated as John F. Kennedy Airport in honor of the murdered president.

1962 – First Flight: Aérospatiale N 262

1958 – During a test flight to renew its certificate of airworthiness, the BOAC Bristol Britannia 312 G-AOVD crashes near Sopley and Winkton, England, killing nine of the 12 people on board and injuring all three survivors.

1955 – NORAD tracks Santa for the first time. This began when a Colorado-based Sears store had published a number for children to be able to call Santa Claus. A typo was made, and the number instead led to the hotline for the Director of Operations at Continental Air Defense Command. Realizing the mistake, the director told his team to give the position of Santa to whoever had called in.

1952 – First Flight: Handley Page Victor WB771

1946 – J Wade and JG Twist, flying a Grumman Goose, rescued three men from an ice floe in the Gulf of St Lawrence after Canadian Pacific Air Lines D.H. 89A made a forced landing.

1944 – A U.S. Army Air Forces strike by Seventh Air Force B-24s on Iwo Jima is combined with a bombardment by U.S. Navy surface ships, but Japanese air raids on Saipan resume later in the day as 25 Japanese aircraft destroy one B-29 and damage three more beyond repair.

1944 – The people of the Philippines received a surprise when airplanes of 43rd Bombing Group flew over to drop a million Christmas cards; each one contained the words: “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 1944 – General Douglas MacArthur.”

1942 – A major U.S. airstrike against Munda airfield destroys four Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes in the air, 10 more on takeoff, and 12 waiting to take off. Later in the day, additional strikes destroy Japanese landing barges and bomb the airfield’s runway.

1937 – First Flight: Macchi C.200

1924 – Imperial Airways de Havilland DH.34 G-EBBX crashes at Purley, Surrey, in the United Kingdom, shortly after takeoff from Croydon Airport, killing all eight people on board. It is Imperial Airways’ first fatal accident, and as a result of a public inquiry into the disaster Croydon Airport is expanded to absorb almost all of Beddington Aerodrome.

1916 – Entered Service: Sopwith Pup with No. 54 Squadron RFC

1908 – The world’s first aeronautical exhibition opens in Paris when the French president inaugurated the second half of the Annual Automobile Salon at the Grand Palais.

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December 23 – Aviation History

December 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2005 – Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 217 from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Aktau, Kazakhstan crashes shortly after takeoff killing 23 people.

2002 – A MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat.

1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California becoming the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world.

1982 – First Flight: Short C-23 Sherpa G-BKMW

1979 – The 1979 Turkish Airlines Ankara crash occurred when a Turkish Airlines Fokker F28 Fellowship 1000 airliner, registration TC-JAT, named Trabzon, on a domestic flight in Turkey from Samsun Airport (SSX/LTAQ) to Esenboğa Airport (ESB/LTAC) in Ankara, flew into the side of a hill at 1,400 m (4,600 ft) near the village of Kuyumcuköy in Çubuk district of Ankara Province, 32 km (20 mi) north by north-east of the destination airport on approach to landing. The crew had deviated from the localizer course while on an ILS approach experiencing severe turbulence.The aircraft had four crew and 41 passengers on board. 38 passengers and three crew were killed at the accident.

1978 – Alitalia Flight 4128, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 registered I-DIKQ, crashes while on approach to Palermo International Airport. the pilots had descended prematurely, thinking they were closer to the airport than they were. They leveled off at 150- feet above the Tyrrhenian Sea when a change in wind speed caused the right wing to clip the water. Fishing boats retrieved the 21 survivors out of the water, whereas 108 people died

1974 – First Flight: Rockwell B-1 Lancer 74-0158

1973 – First Flight: Aero Boero 260AG

1972 – Braathens SAFE Flight 239, a Fokker F-28 Fellowship, crashes at Asker, Norway, while on approach to land at Oslo Airport in Fornebu, killing 40 of the 45 people on board and injuring all five survivors. It is deadliest air accident in Norwegian history at the time and the first involving a Fokker Fellowship.

1972 – Soviet aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev dies, aged 86.

1972 – First Flight: Aero Boero AB-260

1966 – First Flight: Dassault Mirage F1

1961 – In Operation Chopper, U.S. Army helicopters airlift 1,000 South Vietnamese paratroopers to attack a suspected Viet Cong headquarters in South Vietnam 10 miles (16 km) west of Saigon.

1953 – First Flight: Lockheed XFV-1 (unplanned “jump” prior to first official flight)

1946 – The first production-model Boeing Stratofreighter rolls out.

1943 – American aircraft based at Tarawa strike Nauru.

1943 – (23-25) Air Solomons (AirSols) aircraft strike Rabaul heavily, U.S. Navy carrier aircraft strike Kavieng on New Ireland, and Fifth Air Force aircraft attack Japanese positions at Cape Gloucester and Cape Hoskins on New Britain.

1941 – Douglas delivers the first C-47 Skytrain, a military transport version of its famous DC-3.

1940 – The first U.S. all-cargo air service is inaugurated by United Air Lines when at 11:30 P.M. a flight leaves New York for Chicago, where it arrives at 3:40 A.M. local time the following morning after stopping in Cleveland.

1940 – Eddie August Schneider dies in crash when his plane is clipped by a U.S. Navy bomber at Floyd Bennett Field.

1939 – Anthony Fokker dies in New York at the age of 49.

1938 – First Flight: Blackburn Roc prototype L3057

1937 – First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber.

1929 – Trans-Canada (McKee) Trophy was awarded to ‘Wop’ May for his flight carrying a diphtheria anti-toxin from Edmonton to Fort Vermillion, Alberta.

1910 – Lt Theodore Ellyson of the United States Navy is assigned to flight training with the Curtiss company, making him the first naval aviator.

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December 22 – Aviation History

December 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2009 – American Airlines Flight 331, a Boeing 737-800, overshoots the runway on landing at Norman Manley International Airport, Kingston, Jamaica, injuring 15 of the 154 people on board.

2001 – Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.

1999 – Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509, a 747-2B5F registered HL7451, crashes on takeoff from London Heathrow. The cockpit crew had ignored comparator warning alarms after takeoff, and crashed from an altitude of 2,500ft, killing all 4 crewmembers.

1992 – Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 1103 was a Boeing 727 with 10 crew and 147 passengers on board that was involved in a mid-air collision. The aircraft was just under 18 years old at the time of the accident. On the day of the accident Flight 1103 took off from Benina International Airport near Benghazi on a domestic flight to Tripoli International Airport. At an altitude of 3,500 ft (1,067 m) during the aircraft’s approach to Tripoli airport, it collided with a Libyan Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23, causing both aircraft to crash. The accident killed all 157 passengers and crew on Flight 1103 and both crewmembers of the MiG-23.

1980 – Saudia Flight 162 was a scheduled flight from Dhahran International Airport, Saudi Arabia to Karachi International Airport, Pakistan that suffered an explosive decompression in the middle of the flight, above international waters off Qatar. Shortly after the aircraft began climbing through 29,000 feet over Qatar international waters, some passengers heard a loud explosion, filling the cabin with smoke. The pilots then made a mayday call to air traffic control at Doha International Airport. An emergency descent was initiated, followed by a successful landing. Some hours later, after passengers and crew had left the aircraft, a hole was discovered in the floor, near the right wing. Afterwards, search and rescue boats found and recovered the bodies of two passengers who had been ejected from the hole. The probable cause of the incident was determined to be a fatigue failure of a wheel flange on the main landing gear. This failure had resulted in one of the tires blowing out. The debris from this explosion had penetrated the cabin of the airplane, causing the explosive decompression.

1979 – First Flight: Aérospatiale Epsilon

1977 – First Flight: Aérospatiale Epsilon

1977 – First Flight: Antonov An-72 (“Coaler”)

1976 – First Flight: Ilyushin Il-86 SSSR-86000

1974 – The Dassault Breguet Mirage F1-E made its first flight, it was piloted by Guy Mitaux-Maurourard.

1974 – Avensa Flight 358 took off on runway 05 from Maturín Airport on a flight to Simón Bolívar International Airport in Venezuela. The McDonnell Douglas DC-9 had 67 passengers and 6 crew on the on board. Five minutes after takeoff from Maturín Airport both engines shut down. Then the pilots lost control of the aircraft and crashed near the city of Maturin, Venezuela killing all 77 on board.

1968 – The first CF-5D was taken on strength by the CAF.

1966 – First flight of the Dassault Mirage F1.

1966 – The Northrop HL-10 lifting body makes its first gliding flight at Edwards Air Force Base.

1965 – American aircraft attack industrial targets in North Vietnam for the first time.

1965 – Entered Servciet: Convair CV-640 with Caribair

1964 – First Flight: SR-71 Blackbird

1962 – First Flight: Lockheed A-12

1961 – U.S. Army helicopters engage in their first combat operation in Vietnam as the 8th Transportation Company makes several airlfits of South Vietnamese ground troops to landing zones in South Vietnam south of Saigon.

1949 – First Flight: North American F-95A, prototype of the F-86D Sabre, also known as the “Sabre Dog,” “Dog Sabre,” and “Dogship

1945 – Two Boeing C-97 Stratofreighters, on their first peacetime mission, carry 190 servicemen from Seattle to Chicago in time for Christmas.

1945 – First Flight: Beechcraft Bonanza

1941 – First Flight: Fairey Firefly prototype Z1826

1941 – First Flight: Vought XTBU-1, prototype of the Consolidated TBY Sea Wolf

1941 – A radar-equipped Fairey Firefly sinks a German submarine (U-451) at night, the first such victory.

1938 – First Flight: Seversky AP-4, predecessor of the Republic P-43 Lancer

1938 – First Flight: De Havilland Flamingo

1937 – (9 & 22) Air battles take place between Imperial Japanese Navy and Nationalist Chinese aircraft over Nanchang on December 9 and during which the Japanese

1936 – First Flight: North American XB-21 s/n 38-485

1930 – First Flight: Tupolev ANT-6

1910 – British aviation pioneer Cecil Grace vanishes over the English Channel during a flight from Calais, France, to Dover, England.

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December 21 – Aviation History

December 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2009 – Spanish airline Air Comet ceases operations.

2007 – First Flight: OMA SUD Skycar

1999 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 1216: A Cubana de Aviación McDonnell Douglas DC-10 overshoots the runway in Guatemala City, Guatemala, and crashes into homes, killing 16 of the 314 people on board and two people in the homes.

1994 – Air Algérie/Phoenix Flight 702P, ship name Oasis, registration 7T-VEE, was a Boeing 737 owned by Air Algérie and leased by Phoenix Aviation which crashed near Coventry Airport, England. All five on board were killed.

1993 – First Flight: Cessna Citation X

1992 – A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport (Portugal), killing 56 people.

1990 – Lockheed aeronautical engineering genius Kelly Johnson, who played a role in designing over 40 aircraft, dies at the age of 80.

1988 – Pan American World Airways Flight 103, a Boeing 747 flying from London to New York City, and carrying many passengers back home for Christmas, a bomb in the plane explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 on board and eleven on the ground. Libyan terrorists are blamed for the tragedy.

1988 – First Flight: Antonov An-225 Mriya

1982 – The last V-bomber squadron of Britain’s RAF, 44, is disbanded at Waddington, Lincolnshire.

1979 – The NASA AD-1 oblique-wing concept demonstrator makes its first flight at Edwards Air Force Base. The plane successfully demonstrated a wing that could pivot obliquely from zero to 60 degrees in flight.

1978 – Seventeen-year-old Robin Oswald hijacks Trans World Airlines Flight 541, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 with 87 people on board, threatening to blow up the airliner if her father is not released from prison. The aircraft makes an emergency landing at Williamson County Regional Airport in Marion, Illinois, where authorities talk her into surrendering without further incident. Her father, Garrett B. Trapnell, had been imprisoned for a 1972 airliner hijacking and her mother, Barbara Ann Oswald, Trapnell’s wife, had been killed when she hijacked a helicopter in May 1978 in order to help him escape from prison.

1970 – First Flight: Grumman YF-14A, prototype of the F-14 Tomcat

1968 – Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At 2h:50m:37s Mission elapsed time (MES), the crew performs the first ever manned Trans Lunar Injection and become the first humans to leave Earth’s gravity.

1966 – First Flight: X-23 PRIME

1965 – New York Airways begins helicopter flights between the roof of the Pan Am Building in midtown Manhattan and JFK Airport.

1964 – First Flight: General Dynamics F-111

1963 – First Flight: Hawker Siddeley Andover

1960 – The first major combat aircraft with variable geometry wings, the General Dynamics F-111, makes its first flight.

1957 – The first aircraft carrier designed as such to be launched in France, Clemenceau, is launched by the Brest Arsenal at Brest.

1943 – Rabaul-based Japanese aircraft make three dive-bombing attacks on U.S. forces unloading at Arawe.

1943 – (21-30) Butaritari-based U.S. Army Air Forces Douglas A-24 Banshee dive bombers make nine strikes on Mili and one on Jaluit.

1941 – (21-22) Aircraft from the Japanese carriers Hiryū and Sōryū strike Wake Island, which will fall to the Japanese on December 23.

1941 – The German submarine U-751 torpedoes and sinks the British escort carrier HMS Audacity while she is escorting a convoy about 430 nautical miles (800 km) west of Cape Finisterre. During her three months of operations, Audacity’s aircraft have shot down five Focke Wulf Fw 200 Condors, damaged three more, and driven one off, contributed to the sinking of a German submarine, and greatly interfered with the operations of German submarines against convoys she had escorted, proving the value of escort carrier escort of convoys. As a result, the Allies will begin to commit escort carriers to convoy escort operations in the Atlantic Ocean again in 1943.

1941 – The Luftwaffe’s Fliegerkorps II begins a steadily escalating bombing and sea mining campaign against Malta with a goal of knocking out British air and naval forces based there.

1940 – Nine Fairey Swordfish from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious sink two Italian merchant ships off Tunisia with the loss of one Swordfish.

1914 – The UK is bombed by a German aircraft for the first time – a Taube drops two bombs near the Admiralty Pier, Kent.

1936 – First Flight: Junkers Ju 88 V1 prototype D-AQEN

1936 – Eddie August Schneider, Bert Acosta, and Frederic Ives Lord, as the Yankee Squadron, travel by ship to fight in the Spanish Civil War with the Loyalists.

1932 – First Flight: Vickers Vincent

1923 – The French dirigible Dixmude explodes over the Mediterranean Sea en route from Cuers-Pierrefeu to Algeria after being struck by lightning. All 52 crew members on board perish.

1914 – The United Kingdom is bombed by a German aircraft for the first time. A Taube drops two bombs near the Admiralty Pier, Kent.

1914 – Flying a Maurice Farman biplane, Royal Naval Air Service Wing Commander Charles R. Samson conducts history’s first night bombing raid, attacking Ostend, Belgium.

1910 – Hélène Dutrieu becomes the first winner of the Coupe Femina (Femina Cup) for a non-stop flight of 167 kilometers (104 mi) in 2 hours 35 minutes.

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December 20 – Aviation History

December 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2008 – Continental Airlines Flight 1404, a 737-524 (N18611), crashes after an aborted takeoff at Denver International Airport. It is suspected that a 37mph gust of crosswind and a patch of ice caused the aircraft to veer to the left just as it was about to become airborne. It vacated the runway and came to rest down a hill, making it almost difficult for firefighters to find. All on-board escaped before fire consumed the aircraft.

1995 – An American Airlines Flight 965: A Boeing 757  crashes on a mountainside near Cali, Colombia, minutes before beginning its landing approach. Four people and a dog on board the aircraft survive; 159 people die.

1992 – Northwest and KLM introduce a new joint logo: “Worldwide Reliability”.

1989 – The United States invasion of Panama, Operation Just Cause, begins with over 300 U.S. military aircraft participating. The U.S. Air Force’s F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter and the U.S. Army’s AH-64 Apache attack helicopter make their combat debuts. One of the first U.S. operations is an air assault by the 1st Battalion (Airborne) of the U.S. Army’s 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment which secures Fort Amador.

1983 – Ozark Air Lines Flight 650, a DC-9-31 registered N994Z, crashes at Sioux Fall Regional Airport on landing after striking a snow plow on the runway. The only fatality was that of the plow driver, and the aircraft later returned to service.

1981 With Capt. Don Eddie in command the last official CF Otter flight took place from Downsview.

1972 – North Central Airlines Flight 575, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31, collides with Delta Air Lines Flight 954, a Convair CV-880, on a runway at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, killing 10 and injuring 15 of the 45 people on board the DC-9 and injuring two of the 93 people aboard the CV-880.

1970 – With pre-tax losses of $US 130 million, the year ends as the worst ever for US airlines.

1969 – The highest-scoring North Vietnamese ace of the Vietnam War, Nguyễn Văn Cốc, scores his final victory, claimed as over an AQM-34 Firebee unmanned aerial vehicle but possibly over an OV-10 Bronco. The North Vietnamese Air Force credits him with nine victories, while the United States confirms seven.

1957 – First flight of the Boeing 707 commercial airliner.

1954 – The Convair YF-102A Delta Dagger makes its first flight at Edwards Air Force Base.

1952 – A United States Air Force C-124 Globemaster II, 50-100, c/n 43238, crashes on take-off from Larson Air Force Base in Moses Lake, Washington, in the United States, killing 87 servicemen, the highest confirmed death toll of any accident in aviation history at the time.

1944 – With an abundance of male pilots now available to ferry military aircraft from factories to airfields, the U.S. Army Air Forces Air Transport Command’s Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) organization is disbanded.

1942 – (overnight) A de Havilland Mosquito of Royal Air Force Bomber Command uses the Oboe blind bombing targeting system operationally for the first time in a raid against a power station at Lutterade in the Netherlands

1941 – The Nationalist Chinese Air Force’s American Volunteer Group, the “Flying Tigers,” sees its first combat near Kunming, China.

1934 – United Airlines Flight 6 was a scheduled flight departing from Chicago, Illinois to Omaha, Nebraska on 1934. Shortly after departing Chicago power was lost on the right engine, and the crew notified Chicago that they were returning. Then power was lost on the left engine and a forced landing was attempted. The aircraft struck some trees. The cause was believed to be carburetor icing.

1934 – A KLM DC-2 registered PH-AJU crashes into the desert during a flight from Amsterdam Netherlands to Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 7 on-board.

1934 – United States Coast Guard Lieutenant Richard L. Burke sets a world seaplane speed record of 308.750 km/h (191.734 mph) over a 3-kilometer (1.8-statute mile) test course flying a Grumman JF-2 Duck.

1928 – Australian George Wilkins and Lieutenant Carl Eielson make the first flight over Antarctica. They use a Lockheed Vega for the 10-hour flight.

1924 – First RCAF Wings Parade took place at Camp Borden, Ontario.  W/C LS Breadner presented wings to F/L Higgins, P/O Carr-Harris, P/O Anderson, P.O Durnin, P/O Slemon, P/O Weaver.

1916 – The US Army Balloon School is established in Fort Omaha, Nebraska.

1910 – Chile establishes its first military aviation arm, the Chilean Army’s Military Aviation Service of Chile.

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December 19 – Aviation History

December 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2009 – A Hawker Siddeley HS 748 overruns the runway at Tonj Airfield, Southern Sudan, killing one person on the ground. The aircraft is carrying security personnel in preparation for a visit from President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

2005 – Chalk’s Ocean Airways Flight 101, a Grumman G-73T registered N2969, crashes off the coast of Miami Beach, Florida, killing all 20 on-board. Metal fatigue had caused the plane’s right wing to snap off, sending the plane plummeting into the ocean. The crash spells the end for Chalk’s Ocean Airways, which has operated since 1917. Amateur video captured the crash.

1997 – SilkAir Flight 185, a Boeing 737-36N, suddenly dives nearly vertically from 35,000 feet (10,668 m) – breaking up in mid-air during the dive – into the Musi River on Sumatra near Palembang, Indonesia, killing and dismembering all 104 people on board the aircraft. Among the dead is Singapore model and author Bonny Hicks. While the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee is unable to determine the cause, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concludes that a pilot, most likely the captain, deliberately crashed the plane in an act of murder-suicide.

1996 – Retirement: The US Navy retires the Grumman A-6 Intruder.

1990 – Northwest Airlines purchases a 25% share in Hawaiian Airlines.

1989 – American Airlines purchases the Central and South American routes owned by struggling Eastern Air Lines.

1986 – Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-61C is aborted at T-minus 31 seconds due to a problem with the solid rocket booster. The clock was set back to T-20 minutes, but ended again at T-9 minutes when the launch window closed due to weather. The mission would later depart January 12, and land 10 days before the Challenger accident took place, making it the last successful shuttle mission before the accident.

1980 – New York Air begins airline operations.

1978 – First Flight: Beriev A-50

1978 – The first solar-powered aircraft, Solar One, makes a successful flight in England.

1976 – A Piper Cherokee buzzes Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, minutes after the conclusion of a National Football League playoff game between the Baltimore Colts and the Pittsburgh Steelers and crashes into the stadium’s upper deck. There are no serious injuries, and the pilot is arrested for violating air safety regulations.

1972 – The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.

1968 – The Boeing Company receives its first order, from Israeli airline El Al, for a long-range version of the 747 Jumbo Jet.

1945 – Cabinet approved the formation of an Air Component of the Royal Canadian Navy.

1945 – First Flight: Grumman XTB3F-1, prototype of the AF Guardian

1944 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Redfish (SS-395) torpedoes and sinks the Japanese aircraft carrier Unryū in the East China Sea with the loss of 1,239 lives. There are 147 survivors.

1941 – No. 420 (Bomber) Squadron was formed in England.

1928 – Harold Pitcairn flies his first autogyro.

1919 – Japanese Hosho was the first designed & built aircraft carrier.

1915 – Captain MM Bell-Irving flying a Morane Scout of No. 1 Squadron, RFC, claimed first Canadian victory by destroying an enemy aircraft.  He was awarded DSO.

1910 – Imperial Japanese Army Captain Yoshitoshi Tokugawa makes the first heavier-than-air flight in Japan piloting a Farman III (biplane).

1908 – The world’s first aerodrome, Port-Aviation, is opened 12 miles outside of Paris.

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December 18 – Aviation History

December 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2006 – First Fight: MQ-8B Fire Scout

2003 – FedEx Flight 647, a MD-10-10F registered N364FE, crashed on landing in Memphis, Tennessee, with no fatalities. Though the aircraft had landed in heavy but legal crosswind, the First Officer failed to line up the aircraft properly, and the right main gear collapsed on touchdown. The aircraft vacated the runway and caught fire.

1995 – Trans Service Airlift Lockheed L-188 crash occurred when a Lockheed L-188C Electra owned by Trans Service Airlift crashed shortly after takeoff from Jamba Airport (JMB), Angola, killing 141 of the passengers and crew.

1977 – SA de Transport Aérien Flight 730, tail number HB-ICK, was a Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle 10R aircraft that crashed on approach to Funchal Airport, Madeira. Thirty-five passengers and one hostess lost their lives, many becoming trapped inside the sinking fuselage. The remaining passengers and crew, including both pilots, were rescued by local fisherman and rescue teams, or swam to the shore nearby.

1995 – Trans Service Airlift was operating a Lockheed L-188C Electra for UNITA (Angola political party), crashed shortly after takeoff from Jamba Airport in Angola, killing 141, with 3 survivors. The crash was attributed to a cargo shift on departure.

1993 – First Flight: Sukhoi Su-34

1992 – First Flight: McDonnell Douglas MD-90

1986 – The ill-fated Nimrod Airborne Early Warning project was finally cancelled after numerous delays and setbacks. In its place, 6 (later changed to 7) Boeing E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft was ordered.

1982 – Hans-Ulrich Rudel, German pilot, dies (b. 1916). Rudel was a Stuka dive-bomber pilot during World War II and is famous for being the most highly decorated German serviceman of the war. Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the only person to be awarded the Knight’s Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.

1977 – SA de Transport Aerien Flight 730, an SE-210 Caravelle registered HB-ICK crashed while on approach to Funchal, Portugal, killing 36 of the 47 on-board. The pilots had failed to set the altimeter to 1014.0mb, and in when relying only on instruments, they came down into the sea.

1972 – (18–25) Frustrated with a lack of progress in peace talks with North Vietnamese negotiators, the United States conducts Operation Linebacker II. Sometimes called “The December Raids” and “The Christmas Bombing”, it involves intense American bombing of North Vietnam, including heavy operations by U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortresses and the laying of naval mines in North Vietnamese harbors including Haiphong. On the first day, 86 B-52s based at Guam strike Hanoi.

1970 – Airbus Industrie is formally established to develop the Airbus A300; it is comprised of Aérospatiale, Deutsche Airbus, Fokker and Hawker Siddeley.

1969 – The England-Australia Commemorative Air Race is flown in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Smith brothers’ flight. It is won by W. J. Bright and F. L. Buxton in a Britten-Norman Islander

1952 – CF-100 exceeds M: 1, earlier tests showed M: 0.88.

1944 – Typhoon Cobra strikes Task Force 38 as it operates in the Philippine Sea east of Luzon. In addition to the sinking of three destroyers, the loss of over 800 men, and damage to many ships, the task force loses 146 carrier aircraft and battleship and cruiser floatplanes. Plans for strikes on Luzon from December 19 to 21 are cancelled.

1940 – First Flight: Curtiss SB2C Helldiver

1939 – The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand institute the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan – known in some countries as the Empire Air Training Scheme – a massive joint military aircrew training program. South Africa participates via a parallel Joint Air Training Scheme agreement.

1939 – Twelve out of 24 Royal Air Force Vickers Wellington bombers are shot down during a raid on German shipping off Wilhelmshaven, leading Bomber Command to abandon daylight raids on Germany.

1935 – First Flight: Miles Nighthawk

1934 – Boeing Airplane Co. subsidiary Stearman Aircraft, located in Wichita, Kan., delivers its first Kaydet to the military. It will become the most common preliminary trainer in service, and 10,346 Kaydets will be built during World War II.

1919 – Sir John Alcock is killed in a crash at Rouen, France.

1912 – French aviator Rolland Garros becomes the first pilot to bridge two countries in a single flight. He flies his Blériot monoplane from North Africa to Europe, half-way across the Mediterranean, 177mi.

1908 – Wilbur Wright at Camp d’Auvours, 11 kilometres east of Le Mans. flies 99.8 kilometres (62.0 mi) in 1 hour 54 minutes 2/5 sec. rising to 110 m (360 ft) – a new world record.

1903 – Orville Wright makes the first sustained, controlled, powered flight in the Flyer airplane at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. The historic first flight lasts 12 seconds and covers 120 feet.

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December 17 – Aviation History

December 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment

2003 – The 100th anniversary of the first flight of the Wright Brothers in the Wright Flyer is celebrated as the 100th birthday of aviation.

2003 – SpaceShipOne flight 11P, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes the first privately-funded manned supersonic flight.

1997 – Aerosvit Flight 241 was a scheduled passenger flight from Kiev which crashed during a missed approach into Thessaloniki in Greece.

1994 – KLM’s last DC-10 is retired.

1994 – The C-5 Galaxy sets a national record after taking off with the maximum payload of all time at 920,836 pounds.

1993 – The first B-2 entered the Air Force’s operational fleet at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.

1984 – C-5 Galaxy of the USAF becomes airborne with 920,836 pounds (417,684 kg) aboard, setting a U.S. national record.

1981 – The first “no tail rotor” or NOTAR system-equipped helicopter, a Hughes-built OH-6A Cayuse.

1981 – First Flight: NAC Fieldmaster

1977 – United Airlines Flight 2860 was a scheduled cargo flight from San Francisco, California to Chicago, Illinois, with an intermediate stop in Salt Lake City, Utah. Operated by one of the airline’s McDonnell Douglas DC-8-54AF Jet Traders, registration N8047U, the flight crashed into a mountain in the Wasatch Range near Kaysville, Utah. All three crew members, the only occupants of the plane, were killed in the accident.

1973 – Between six and 10 Palestinian terrorists attack the terminal building at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Italy, with automatic firearms and grenades, killing two people. They then throw grenades through the open doors of the Pan American World Airways Boeing 707-321B Clipper Celestial, operating as Flight 110 with 177 people on board, just as it is preparing to taxi for departure; 30 people aboard the plane die and 20 are injured. Five other gunmen storm a Lufthansa Boeing 737, bringing aboard 10 hostages and taking the crew of four on board hostage as well. On December 18, after 16 hours on the ground, during which time they murder one and injure another hostage, they dump the injured hostage and the body of the murdered one off the 737 and order it to fly to Athens, Greece; the plane then spends another 16 hours on the ground in Athens before proceeding to a landing at Damascus, Syria. Finally, the 737 flies to Kuwait, where the five hijackers release the 12 remaining hostages and are given free passage off the plane.

1971 – The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 comes to an end. The Indian Air Force has lost 72 aircraft and the Pakistani Air Force 94 aircraft.

1969 – The USAF closes Project Blue Book, its 22-year investigation into sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs.

1963 – First Flight: C-141 Starlifter

1963 – First Flight: Matra Jupiter

1960 – A U.S. Air Force Convair C-131D Samaritan crashes due to fuel contamination shortly after takeoff from Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany. It crashes in the Ludwigsvorstadt borough of downtown Munich, striking a crowded two-section Munich streetcar. All 20 people on the plane and 32 people on the ground die.

1960 – The visitor’s center at the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, is dedicated on the 57th anniversary of the Wright Flyer‘s first flight in 1903.

1956 – First Flight: Short SC.1

1956 – First Flight: E-1 Tracer

1954 – The 1,000th Wichita-built Boeing B-47 is delivered to the Strategic Air Command.

1954 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower presents James H. “Dutch” Kindleberger and the North American Aviation F-100 Super Sabre design team with the Collier Trophy in recognition of their contributions to aviation.

1951 – Entered Service: Lockheed Super Constellation with Eastern Air Lines

1950 – The United States Air Force F-86 Sabre fighter begins operations in the Korean War; four F-86s engage four MiG-15s and shoot down one of them.

1947 – Boeing test pilot Bob Robbins takes the Boeing XB-47 Stratojet on its first flight from Boeing Field, Seattle, to Larson Air Force Base at Moses Lake, Wash.

1944 – U.S. Army Air Forces Major Richard I. Bong scores his 40th and final aerial victory, enough to make him the top-scoring American ace of World War II. He has made all of his kills flying the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

1943 – For the first time, the Cape Torokina airstrip on Bougainville is used to stage the first Air Solomons (AirSols) raid on Rabaul.

1942 – A U.S. Army Air Forces reconnaissance and bombing raid on Amchitka in the Aluetian Islands destroys every building in the deserted Aleut village there, although no Japanese are on the island

1941 – (17-20) All surviving B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the United States Army Air Force‘s Far East Air Force are withdrawn from the Philippine Islands to Australia. All other Far Eastern Air Force aircraft are destroyed or captured by the Japanese.

1941 – A Yokosuka E14Y floatplane (Allied reporting name “Glen”) launched by the Japanese submarine I-7 conducts a post-strike reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor. It is the E14Y’s combat debut.

1941 – Aircraft from HMS Audacity damage the German submarine U-131 so badly that her crew later scuttles her. It is the first time that escort aircraft carrier-based aircraft contribute to the sinking of a submarine.

1941 – In the Philippine Islands, United States Army Air Forces P-40 Warhawk pilot Lieutenant Colonel Boyd Wagner shoots down his fifth Japanese plane near Vigan, becoming the first American ace of World War II.

1939 – UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand sign an agreement at Ottawa to set up the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in Canada for the training of aircrew.  The Plan was to be administered and organized by the RCAF.

1938 – The first Canadian-built, the Canadian Car & Foundry FBD-1, was flown at Fort Williams, Ontario.

1935 – First Flight: Douglas DST, prototype of the Douglas DC-3

1915 – First Flight: Handley Page O/400

1907 – First flight of the Santos-Dumont Demoiselle (No 19).

1903 – The Wright Brothers make four flights in their Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina following years of research and development. Orville Wright takes off first and flies 120 ft (37 m) in 12 seconds. This is frequently considered the first controlled, powered heavier-than-air flight and is the first such flight photographed. On the fourth effort, Wilbur flies 852 ft (260 m) in 59 seconds.

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