Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September

September 1

• 2012 – Heavy fighting takes place between Syrian government and rebel forces at the Syrian Air Force college at Rasm al-Abboud and at the Syrian Air Force base at Abu ad Duhur, and rebel forces overrun a government air defense building in Deir ez-zor.^[1]

• 2009 – Slovak airline SkyEurope suspends operations.

• 2007 – Radom Air Show crash: Two aerobatics aircraft collided during Radom Air Show, two pilots died in a crash.

• 2006 – Iran Air Tours Flight 945, a Tupolev Tu-154, crashes while attempting to land in Mashad, Iran, killing 28 of 154 on board.

• 1983 – Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a Boeing 747, is shot down by Soviet fighter planes near Sakhalin and Moneron Island after straying into Soviet airspace; all 269 people on board are killed.

• 1983 – A Boeing-Vertol UH-46 Sea Knight loses power on lift-off from the deck of Spruance-class destroyer USS Fife during her first deployment, strikes the NATO Sea Sparrow missile mount, leaving the stricken helicopter hanging over the ship's starboard side. Fife's damage control teams quickly lash the UH-46 in place and all 16 personnel are rescued without serious injury. After pulling into Singapore to crane off the damaged helicopter, the warship sails west to Diego Garcia to receive a new Sea Sparrow mount.

• 1975 – Egyptian Air Force Tupolev Tu-16K11-16 Badger, 4403, crashed over the Menya area of Egypt. It had a left engine fire and the bullets of the second navigator's gun were exploding. Pilot Wing Commander Mohamed Keraidy refused to bail out as he tried to rescue his crew. The intercom was disabled due to the fire. Co-pilot Fl. Lt. Adel El Fiky bailed out safely. Major Samir Abdel Fattah, 1st Navigator, died while trying to eject. Captain Salah El Menshawy, 2nd Navigator, died instantly from the explosion of the oxygen thermos behind him in the bomber. Keraidy finally bailed out several minutes after putting the bomber in a dive position into the river Nile in order to reduce the explosion. Gunner and radioman did not escape the aircraft and were KWF. The pilot was taken by a helicopter to the Maadi military hospital in Cairo and died in the ICU several hours later. This crash was the longest emergency case in the Egyptian Air Force. Wing Commander Keraidy was the first Egyptian officer to be given the Golden Military Bravery Medal, first Category, without dying in a battle.

• 1974 – The U. S. Air Force SR-71 Blackbird 61-17972, flown by Major James Sullivan (pilot) and Major Noel F, Widdifield (reconnaissance systems officer), crosses the Atlantic Ocean from New York City to London in a world record 1 h 54 min 56 seconds at an average speed of 1,806.96 mph (2,909.76 km/h).

• 1974 – The Sikorsky S-67 Blackhawk company demonstrator N671SA crashed while attempting to recover from a roll at too low an altitude during its display at the Farnborough Air Show, United Kingdom, killing its two crew.

• 1970 – A Vought F-8J Crusader from VF-24 suffers ramp strike on the USS Hancock and explodes during night carrier qualifications, killing Lt. Darrell N. Eggert.

• 1967 – The U. S. Navy's first dedicated search-and-rescue squadron, Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 7 (HC-7), is commissioned at Atsugi, Japan; it operates UH-2 Seasprite helicopters. Previously, all Navy search-and-rescue had been performed by helicopter antisubmarine squadrons. HC-7 will make its first rescue on October 3 in Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam.

• 1966 – Britannia Airways Flight 105, a Bristol Brittania, crashes on approach to Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport in Ljubjljana, Slovenia. 98 of the 117 passengers and crew on board were killed.

• 1961 – TWA Flight 529, a Lockheed Constellation L-049 propliner, abruptly pitches up and crashes shortly after takeoff from Chicago's Midway Airport, killing all 73 passengers and 5 crew on board; a 5/16 inch bolt which fell out of the elevator control linkage just before the crash is blamed.

• 1953 – The sole YB-47F Stratojet modified for probe-and-drogue refueling is refueled by the sole KB-47G in the first jet-to-jet aerial refueling

• 1953 – The first scheduled international helicopter service begins between Belgium and France. The service is operated by Belgian airline Sabena.

• 1952 – In the largest carrier air strike of the Korean War, 144 U. S. Navy aircraft from the aircraft carriers USS Essex (CV-9), USS Princeton (CV-37), and USS Boxer (CV-21) attack the oil refinery at Aoji, Korea. Attacks on industrial targets at Munsan and electrical plants at Chongjin are also conducted. All U. S. aircraft return safely.

• 1952 – Several tornados sweep across Carswell AFB, Texas destroying Convair B-36B Peacemaker, 44-92051, and damaging 82 others of the 11th Bomb Group, 7th Bomb Wing, including ten at the Convair plant on the other side of the Fort Worth base. Gen. Curtis LeMay is forced to remove the 19th Air Division from the war plan, and the base went on an 84-hour work week until repairs were made. 26 B-36s were returned to Convair for repairs, and the last aircraft deemed repairable was airborne again on 11 May 1953.

• 1951 – No. 443 Squadron was reformed at New Westminster, BC.

• 1951 – No. 439 Squadron was reformed at Uplands and equipped with North American Sabre fighters.

• 1950 – The number three engine of the Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-749 A Constellation Star of Maryland, operating as Flight 903, catches fire, then falls off the wing, while the aircraft is flying near Cairo, Egypt. The crew attempts an emergency landing near Ityai el Barud, Egypt, but the aircraft crashes, killing all 55 people on board. Among the dead are architect Maciej Nowicki and an Egyptian film star.

• 1948 – First flight of the Saab J-29, Sweden's first jet

• 1946 – Using Douglas DC-4 aircraft, Northwest Airlines initiates service between Seattle, Washington, and Anchorage, Alaska, as the first leg of its proposed United States-Japan North Pacific route.

• 1946 – Entered Service: Vickers Viking with British European Airways (G-AHOP)

• 1943 – Due to the vast distances involved, land-based American aircraft have flown only 102 combat sorties in the Central Pacific Area since January 1.

• 1943 – U. S. Navy aircraft from the carriers USS Essex (CV-9), USS Yorktown (CV-10), and USS Independence (CVL-22) fly six strikes totalling 275 sorties against Marcus Island, destroying several Japanese Mitsubishi G4M (Allied reporting name “Betty”) bombers on the ground in exchange for the loss of four American aircraft.

• 1943 – U. S. Army Air Force Fifth Air Force aircraft conduct a major raid against the Japanese airfield at Madang, New Guinea.

• 1943 – The U. S. Army Air Forces disband the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command, although some Army antisubmarine squadrons will operate until November.

• 1943 – The Civil Air Patrol is relieved of maritime patrol duties off the coast of the United States.

• 1943 – (1-11) The aircraft carriers USS Princeton (CVL-23) and USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) and Canton Island-based U. S. Navy PV-1 Venturas cover the unopposed American landing on Baker Island. On three occasions, F6F Hellcats from the carriers shoot down an approaching Japanese Kawanishi H8 K (Allied reporting name “Emily”) flying boat. A U. S. Army Air Forces fighter squadron arrives on Baker Island on September 11.

• 1942 – (overnight) Due to heavy German jamming of Gee, Royal Air Force Bomber Command Pathfinder aircraft go astray, marking the wrong city, and the force of 231 British bombers that sets out to attack Saarbrücken instead bombs Saarlouis 15 km (9.3 mi) to the northwest.

• 1940 – First flight of the North American P-64 (NA-68)

• 1939 – During the predawn hours of the day, a Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87 “Stuka” dive bomber flown by Leutnant Frank Neubert of I Group, Sturzkampfgeshwader 2, scores the first aerial victory of World War II, shooting down a PZL P.11c fighter flown by Polish Captain Mieczysław Medwecki. Twenty minutes later, Medwecki's wingman, Second Lieutenant Wladyslaw Gnys, flying a PZL P.11c, scores probably the first Allied aerial victories of the war, shooting down two German Dornier Do.17E bombers of Kampfgeschwader 77 over Zurada, near Olkusz, Poland, although some authors have claimed that Polish antiaircraft artillery shot down the bombers.

• 1939 – Germany invades Poland. The Luftwaffe plays a key tactical bombing role in neutralising Polish defences.

• 1939 – Second prototype Saro S.36 Lerwick twin-engine flying boat, L7249, sinks at pierside mooring at Felixstowe, Suffolk, when, after flight test at the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment (MAEE), a hatch is left improperly secured attempt by crew to save it fails as it had already shipped too much water - salvaged for static tests only.

• 1937 – First flight of the Bell YFM-1 Airacuda

• 1937 – Air Canada, Canada's largest airline, began operations.

• 1937 – Douglas Aircraft Company acquires the remaining 49 percent of the shares of its Northrop Corp. subsidiary and begins operating the facility in August 1938 as the Douglas El Segundo (Calif.) Division.

• 1937 – Supported by 250 aircraft, Spanish Nationalist forces begin an offensive against Republicans inn Asturias. The absence of the Condor Legion, which is deployed in Aragon, is felt; Nationalist progress is slow for the first six weeks.

• 1934 – Formation of Nos. 15 (Fighter) and 18 (Bomber) Squadrons on Non-Permanent Active Air Force at Montreal, Quebec, was authorized.

• 1931 – Trenton Air Station was opened by the RCAF.

• 1930 – Curtiss XF6C-6 racer, A-7147, crashes during the Thompson Trophy race in Chicago, Illinois, killing U.S. Marine Corps pilot Capt. Arthur H. Page. The only military entry, Page gained and increased an early lead but on the 17th of 20 laps, crashed to his death, a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning.

• 1925 – After modifications, the aircraft carrier HMS Furious returns to service with the Royal Navy as the first ship ever to be equipped with a round-down Located at the after end of her flight deck, the round-down, which improves air flow and gives pilots landing aboard Furious greater confidence, will become standard on aircraft carriers.

• 1923 – The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Amagi is heavily damaged by the Great Kantō earthquake while still under conversion from a battle cruiser. She is scrapped, and the battleship Kaga is selected for conversion into an aircraft carrier instead.

• 1923 – The Royal Australian Air Force is formed.

• 1921 – President Warren Harding authorizes the creation of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, with Rear Admiral Moffet as its chief.

• 1914 – The Wakamiya arrives off Kiaochow Bay, China, to participate in operations during the Siege of Tsingtao. It is the first combat deployment of an aviation ship by any country.

• 1914 – The first U. S. tactical air unit, the First Aero Squadron, is organized because of the August outbreak of war in Europe. Based in San Diego, California, the unit has 16 officers, 77 enlisted men, and 8 airplanes.

• 1913 – Frenchman Adolphe Pégoud does the first upside-down flight.

References[edit]

September 2

• 2011 – A CASA C-212 Aviocar of the Chilean Air Force crashed into the sea off Robinson Crusoe Island. All 21 people on board were killed.

• 2009 – Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister helicopter crash: A Bell 430 helicopter crashes at Rudrakonda Hill, India, killing all five people on board, including Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh.

• 2008 – ExpressJet Airlines ended operations as an independent carrier.

• 2006 – A Royal Air Force Hawker-Siddeley Nimrod MR.2 NATO reconnaissance plane, XV230, crashes near Kandahar, Afghanistan after a fire and explosion caused by a fuel leak. All 14 crew on board are killed.

• 2003 – A soldier is killed as a UH-60L Black Hawk from 2–501st Aviation Regiment rolls over during a nighttime troop insertion southwest of Baghdad.^[1]

• 1998 – Swissair Flight 111, a McDonnell Douglas MD-11, crashes into the sea near Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada, because of an onboard fire. All 229 people on board perish.

• 1998 – First flight of the Boeing 717

• 1998 – A Permaviatrans Antonov An-26 was shot down by UNITA rebels over Angola. All 24 people on board were killed.

• 1995 – RAF Kinloss Wing Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR.2, XV239, crashes into Lake Ontario, at Toronto, Canada, during the 46th Canadian National Exhibition International airshow, killing all seven crew of 120 Squadron. Video of this crash is widely available on the internet.

• 1990 – The number of U. S. Air Force aircraft deployed in and around Saudi Arabia has risen to 400 combat and 200 support aircraft.

• 1986 – Schweizer RG-8A, 85-0048, c/n 4, ex-civil registration N3623C, modified Schweizer SGS 2-32 motor glider for U.S. Army Grisly Hunter reconnaissance project. Crashed at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, killing two-man crew.

• 1981 – Two Italian Air Force Fiat G.91PANs of the Frecce Tricolori collide over Rivolto during a team practice, team leader is killed.

• 1975 – The unified Canadian Armed Forces merges its aviation services into a single command, the Canadian Forces Air Command.

• 1966 – A USN Grumman F-11A Tiger, BuNo 141764, of the Blue Angels aerobatic team, Blue Angel 5, crashes on the shore of Lake Ontario during the International Air Exhibition at Toronto, Canada. The pilot, Lieutenant Commander Richard "Dick" Oliver, 31 years old, of Fort Mill, South Carolina, is killed. Coming out of a knife edge pass, followed by a roll, 5 contacts the lake surface at ~500 mph and literally skis across the surface, striking a six-foot high sheet steel piling retaining wall on the edge of Toronto Island Airport and disintegrating. Wreckage (turbine) is thrown as far as 3,483.6 feet from point of initial impact.

• 1958 – The 1958 London Vickers Viking accident occurred near Southall, London, killing all 3 crew on board and another 4 people on the ground.

• 1949 – First flight of the De Havilland Venom

• 1948 – The 1948 Lutana crash; Australian National Airways Flight 331, a Douglas DC-3, crashes into high terrain near Nundle, New South Wales, killing all 13 people on board.

• 1947 – S/L CN Burridge and crew of the RCAF high speed rescue launch ‘Takuli’, completed a 7000 mile voyage from Patricia Bay, BCtoDartmouth Nova Scotia, via the Panama Canal.

• 1947 – First flight of the Hawker P.1040 VP401

• 1945 – At the conclusion of the surrender ceremony aboard the U. S. Navy battleship USS Missouri (BB-63)inTokyo Bay, in which Japan formally surrenders to the Allies to end World War II, 450 Allied carrier planes and several hundred U. S. Army Air Forces aircraft perform a victory fly-by over the ships in the bay.

• 1944 – In an experiment with the use of the F4U Corsair as a fighter-bomber, Charles Lindbergh—the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean—flies a bombing mission in an F4U as a civilian consultant with United Aircraft, dropping one 2,000-lb (907-kg) and two 1,000-pound (454-kg) bombs on Japanese positions in the Marshall Islands.

• 1943 – U. S. Army Fifth Air Force aircraft attack the airfield and harbor at Wewak, New Guinea, sinking two Japanese merchant ships.

• 1942 – The only test flight of the Soviet Antonov A-40 winged tank is partially successful. Although A-40′s aerodynamic drag forces the Tupolev TB-3 towing it to detach it early to avoid crashing, the A-40 glides to a successful landing and drives back to base as a conventional T-60 tank. The A-40 project nonetheless is abandoned due to the lack of aircraft powerful enough to tow it.

• 1942 – First flight of the Hawker Tempest

• 1941 – First RCAF night fighter victory was scored by F/O RC Fumerton and Sgt LPS Bing in a Bristol Beaufighter of 406 Squadron, over Bedlington, England.

• 1940 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal conduct Operation Smash, a night raid on Cagliari, Sardinia. While some Swordfish drop parachute flares, others bomb an Italian military headquarters and aircraft parked on the ground.

• 1939 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Me 210

• 1939 – In anticipation of war breaking out with Germany, the Royal Air Force’s Advanced Air Striking Force deploys to bases around Rheims, France.

• 1937 – First flight of the Grumman F4F Wildcat

• 1930 – The first nonstop airplane flight from Europe to the United States was completed in 37 hours as Capt. Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte of France arrived in Valley Stream, N. Y., aboard a Breguet biplane. (The plane was known as “The Question Mark” because it bore the image of the punctuation sign on its side.)

• 1925 – The U. S. zeppelin the USS Shenandoah crashes, killing 14.

• 1910 – Blanche Stuart Scott makes the first solo airplane flight by a woman in the United States subsequently recognized by the Early Birds of Aviation.

• 1891 – The first parachute descent by a Canadian woman was made when Nellie Lamount jumped from a hot-air balloon during a fair in Quebec.

• 1858 – Samuel King introduces the first dragline in America. It is a long rope attached to the basket, which helps to stabilize altitude by dragging on the ground when the balloon is flying very low.

References[edit]

September 3

• 2010 – UPS Flight 6, operated by Boeing 747-44AF N571UP crashed shortly after take-off from Dubai International Airport, killing both crew and destroying the aircraft. N571UP was operating an international cargo flight to Cologne Bonn Airport, Germany.^[1]

• 2009 – BA CityFlyer accepts delivery of its first Embraer 170.

• 1997 – Vietnam Airlines Flight 815, a Tupolev Tu-134, crashes on approach to Phnom Penh International Airport in heavy rain, killing 65 of the 66 people on board.

• 1989 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 9646, an Ilyushin Il-62M, crashes while trying to take off from José Martí International Airport in Havana, Cuba. All 126 people on board the aircraft plus 45 people on the ground are killed in the crash.

• 1989 – Varig Flight 254, a Boeing 737, runs out of fuel because of incorrect navigation and crashes in the Brazilian jungle, killing 13 of the 54 people on board.

• 1982 – First flight of the Beechcraft 1900

• 1981 – McDonnell Douglas delivers the 1,000th DC-9 produced; it was ordered by Swissair.

• 1981 – First flight of the British Aerospace 146

• 1979 – Two Convair F-106 Delta Darts of the 186th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 120th Fighter-Interceptor Group, Montana Air National Guard, out of Great Falls Airport, perform a pair of a flyovers in Dillon, Montana in conjunction with the town's Labor Day parade. One Delta Dart, F-106A-70-CO, 57-2458, c/n 8-24-41, piloted by Capt. Joel Rude, clips a grain elevator with its port wing. The pilot unsuccessfully attempts to eject and is killed. Forty others are injured by debris and fire but Capt. Rude is the only fatality. On 7 September 2009, a commemorative plaque is dedicated in Dillon in the pilot's memory.

• 1978 – Air Rhodesia Flight 825 from Kariba to Salisbury is shot down by a SA-7 surface-to-air missile; eighteen of the fifty-six passengers initially survive the emergency landing, 10 are subsequently killed by Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army militants.

• 1976 – An Lockheed C-130H Hercules, 7772, c/n 4408, "24 de Julio", belonging to the Venezuelan Air Force crashed in the Azores Islands, near the Lajes Field at ~2145 hrs., while attempting an approach in a storm (Hurricane Emmy). 64 passengers, including most of the University Choir of the Venezuelan Central University (Universidad Central de Venezuela) and its Director Mr. Vinicio Adames, together with 4 crewmembers died in the accident.

• 1975 – A USAF Boeing B-52G-85-BW Stratofortress, 57-6493, of the 68th Bomb Wing, Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina, crashed near Aiken, South Carolina, when the aircraft suffered major structural failure due to a major fuel leak with the right wing separating between the third and fourth engine nacelles, the wing then shearing off the horizontal stabilizer. The bomber rolled inverted and broke apart. Witnesses described it as a "ball of fire" which then plunged into a wooded area. Wreckage was spread over a 10-mile area. Four crewmembers successfully ejected, three KWF. The aircraft was on a routine training mission and was carrying no weapons. The Federal Aviation Administration, which was monitoring the flight, said the bomber was last reported flying at an altitude of 28,000 feet. Killed were 1st Lt. Grady E. Rudolph, 26, of Lafayette, Indiana; 1st Lt. Melvin E. Bewley, Jr., 25, of Birmingham, Alabama; and Sgt. Ricky K. Griffith, 21, of Cedarville, New Jersey. Survivors were Capt. James A. Perry, 29, of Princeton, West Virginia; Capt. Donnell Exum, 27, Smithfield, North Carolina; Capt. Gregory A. Watts, 27, Morganton, North Carolina; and 2d Lt. Hector M. Marquez, 24, Brownsville, Texas. The four survivors were reported in good condition at the Dwight Eisenhower Medical Center, Fort Gordon, Georgia. The Department of Defense said that 67 B-52s have crashed, including 17 in the Vietnam War.

• 1970 – Air France places the first orders for the Airbus A300.

• 1955 – J. S. Fairfield makes the first ejection from an aircraft on the ground, escaping from a Gloster Meteor traveling at 120 mph (193 km/h) along a runway.

• 1953 – First flight of the Pilatus P-3.

• 1948 – The only Silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortress to be part of the strike package on both atomic missions over Japan, Boeing B-29-40-MO Superfortress, 44-27353, "The Great Artiste", of the 509th Composite Group, deployed to Goose Bay Air Base, Labrador for polar navigation training, aborts routine training flight due to an engine problem, makes downwind landing, touches down halfway down runway, overruns onto unfinished extension, groundloops to avoid tractor. Structural damage at wing joint so severe that Superfortress never flies again. Despite historic value, airframe is scrapped at Goose Bay in September 1949.

• 1940 – Ark Royal aircraft again attack Cagliari in Operation Grab in an attack similar to that of Operation Smash. The raid is less successful, with many bombs falling into the sea.

• 1939 – Armstrong Whitworth Whitleys are used to drop propaganda leaflets into German cities.

• 1939 – Paratroops are used for the first time, with German units dropped into Silesia, behind Polish lines.

• 1939 – The United Kingdom and France declare war on Germany.

• 1936 – Nationalist aircraft on Majorca support a Nationalist counteroffensive against Republican invaders, demoralizing them and sparking a precipitous Republican retreat from the island, which will become an important Nationalist base for the remainder of the Spanish Civil War.

• 1934 – Fokker Y1O-27, 31-599, of the 12th Observation Squadron, Brooks Field, Texas, crashes 5 miles W of Danville, Louisiana after starboard engine loses power. Pilot Cadet Neil M. Caldwell and passenger Pvt. Betz Baker die in crash and fire, passenger Pvt. Virgil K. Martin, riding in rear cockpit, survives with minor injuries. This aircraft has previously ditched in San Diego Bay, California on 16 December 1932.

• 1932 – Jimmy Doolittle sets a new landplane airspeed record of 296 mph (476 km/h) in the Gee Bee R-1

• 1930 – Ford National Reliability Air Tour finishes in Chicago. Harry Russell takes first place, and Eddie August Schneider finishes in eighth place, but wins the Great Lakes Trophy.

• 1925 – U.S. Navy airship, USS Shenandoah ZR-1, crashed after encountering thunderstorms near Ava, Ohio after an in flight break up due to cloud suck about 0445 hrs. Fourteen of 43 aboard are killed. The ship's commanding officer, Lt. Cdr. Zachery Lansdowne is killed on what was to have been his final flight before reassignment to sea duty.

• 1925 – The Spanish Navy aviation ship Dédalo, the only ship ever built capable of operating airships, balloons, and seaplanes, accompanies a Spanish fleet to Morocco to participate in the Rif War. Her aircraft and one of the airships she operates support the Spanish campaign to capture Ajir, which falls on October 2. She is the only European aviation ship to see combat between the end of the Russian Civil War and the beginning of World War II.

• 1924 – Regular airmail service in Canada began with flights between Ontario and Quebec.

• 1917 – The US first Aero Squadron arrives in France

• 1916 – Imperial German Army Zeppelin LZ86, LZ56, crashed when the fore and aft nacelles broke away from the ship's hull after a raid.

• 1915 – First Canadian-built twin engined aircraft, the Curtis Canada, was flown at Long Branch.

• 1908 – Seeking a contract to build the United States Army’s first airplane, Orville Wright begins flight trials before Army observers at Fort Myer, Virginia, in a new Wright Model A flyer. The flight lasts 1 min 11 seconds.

References[edit]

September 4

• 2010 – Alrosa Mirny Air Enterprise Flight 514, operated by Tupolev Tu-154 M RA-85684 suffered a complete electrical failure in flight. A successful emergency landing was made at Izhma Airport, Russia but the aircraft overran the runway. All 81 passengers and crew escaped uninjured. The aircraft involved was repaired in 2011.
• 2010 – New Zealand Fletcher FU24 crash: This crash occurred on take-off from the Fox Glacier, killing all nine people on board. This was the worst aircraft accident in New Zealand for 21 years, and at the time the 7th worst in New Zealand.
• 2009 – Air India Flight 829, a Boeing 747-437, registration VT-ESM, suffers a fire in No.1 engine while taxiing for take-off at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, India. All 229 people are successfully evacuated from the aircraft via the emergency chutes. The aircraft is substantially damaged.
• 2004 – OH-58D Kiowa (3–17 CAV) shot down over Tal Afar, Iraq; both pilots safe. Incident highlighted in TV Documentary Kiowa Down.^[1]
• 2001 – First flight of the Sukhoi Su-80
• 2000 – 2000 Australia Beechcraft King Air crash: A Beechcraft King Air on a flight from Perth, Western Australia to the Gwalia Gold Mine fails to land; instead flying on autopilot across Australia to Burketown, Queensland, where it eventually crashes after running out of fuel. The pilot and the seven passengers are killed.
• 1999 – September 12 – The 11th FAI World Rally Flying Championship in Ravenna, Italy. Individual winners: first Krzysztof Wieczorek & Wacław Wieczorek (Poland), 2nd Janusz Darocha & Zbigniew Chrząszcz (Poland), 3rd Nigel Hopkins & Dale de Klerk (South Africa); team winners: first Poland, 2nd Czech Republic, 3rd France.
• 1997 – First flight of The Zeppelin NT, German semi-rigid airship.
• 1992 – A B-2 Spirit bomber drops a bomb for the first time.
• 1971 – Alaska Airlines Flight 1866, a Boeing 727, crashes into a mountain in the Tongass National Forest near Juneau, Alaska, killing all 111 on board.
• 1964 – First flight of the HAL HJT-16 Kiran
• 1963 – Swissair Flight 306, a Sud Aviation Caravelle, crashes near Dürrenäsch, Switzerland due to an in-flight fire, killing all 80 on board.
• 1957 – First flight of the Lockheed JetStar
• 1957 – Douglas C-124A Globemaster II, 51-5173, en route from Larson AFB, Washington, crashed while attempting a landing at Binghamton Airport, Binghamton, New York. On final approach, just before touchdown, the airplane struck an embankment and crashed on the runway. The plane was delivering 20 tons of equipment for Link Aviation. The crew of 9 survived.
• 1953 – Nos. 414, 422 and 444 Squadrons, comprising No. 4 Fighter Wing, flew from Canada to their new base at Baden Soellingen, Germany.
• 1950 – Cpt Robert Wayne becomes the first pilot to be rescued from behind enemy lines by a helicopter
• 1950 – Four F4U Corsair fighter-bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge intercept a twin-engine Soviet aircraft approaching Task Force 77 off Korea and shoot it down after it opens fire on them.
• 1949 – First flight of the Avro 707 VX784
• 1949 – First flight of the Bristol Brabazon.
• 1948 – A U.S. Navy Vought F4U Corsair fighter from Naval Air Station New York crashes into a four-family home at 39-29 212th Street, Queens, New York, killing the pilot, 1st Lt. Roger Olsen, USMCR, 25, of New Rochelle, New York, and three civilian women, Mrs. Helen Raynor, Mrs Alice Cressmer, and Miss Louise Paul. The pilot, a 1943 Pensacola graduate, was on the first day of a two-week reserve training course. The plane impacted one block from the Bayside station of the Long Island Railroad
• 1946 – First prototype Bell XP-83, 44-84990, bailed back to Bell Aircraft Company by the USAAF as a ramjet testbed, and modified with an engineer's station in the fuselage in lieu of the rear fuel tank and pylon for test ramjet under starboard wing, suffers fire in ramjet on flight out of Niagara Falls Airport, New York. Flames spread to wing, forcing Bell test pilot "Slick" Goodlin and engineer Charles Fay to bail out, twin-jet fighter impacting at ~1020 hrs. on farm in Amhurst, New York, ~13 miles from Niagara Airport, creating ~25 foot crater.
• 1944 – Douglas A-26B-15-DL Invader, 41-39158, first assigned to Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Station, Boscombe Down on 11 July 1944 for six weeks' testing (but no RAF serial assigned), then to 2 Group for further evaluation, crashes this date when the upper turret cover left airframe, striking the vertical tail.
• 1944 – No. 437 (Transport) Squadron was formed in England.
• 1943 – Finding the red in the national insignia adopted in June 1943 for its military aircraft could cause confusion with Japanese markings during combat, the United States adopts a new marking consisting of a white star centered in a blue circle flanked by white rectangles, with the entire insignia outlined in blue. The new marking will remain in use until January 1947.
• 1943 – Allied forces land at Lae, New Guinea. A small raid by nine Japanese planes destroys a tank landing ship off Lae. Later, the Japanese mount a strike of 80 aircraft; after U. S. Army Air Forces P-38 Lightnings shoot down 23, the rest attack Allied ships off Lae, damaging two tank landing ships.
• 1942 – (Overnight) 251 British bombers attack Bremen, Germany. For the first time, Bomber Command uses three waves of Pathfinders – “illuminators” dropping flares followed by “visual markers” who drop colored target indicators followed by “backers-up” who drop incendiary bombs – To mark the target. Bremen suffers serious damage.
• 1942 – On the night of 4-5th, Handley Page Hampden, AE436, of No. 144 Squadron RAF crashes on the remote Tsatsa Mountain in Sweden while en route from Sumburgh in Shetland to Afrikanda, Northern Russia, after being forced down to lower altitude by overheating engine. Pilot Officer D.I. Evans and passenger Cpl B.J. Sowerby survive with only slight injuries, three other members of crew die. Evans and Sowerby take three days to cross mountains and reach the village of Kvikkvokk, ~20 miles (32 km) to the south east. Wreckage of Hampden is re-discovered by three girl hikers at 5,000 ft (1,500 m) in August 1976, with remains of dead crew still in wreckage.
• 1940 – Adolf Hitler orders German bombing attacks on London.
• 1940 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious attack Italian airfields on Rhodes.
• 1939 – Canadian Pilot Officer S. R. Henderson serving in No.206 Squadron, became the first Canadian to participate in an operational sortie during the Second World War when he served as the lead navigator in a bomber force attacking German targets.
• 1939 – First British bombs of the war dropped on German targets, with a Bristol Blenheim attacking the German fleet.
• 1939 – Supermarine Type 300, the prototype SpitfiretoF.37/34, K5054, is wrecked when Flt. Lt. "Spinner" White misjudges his landing approach at Farnborough, bouncing several times before fighter noses over onto its back. Pilot dies in hospital four days later. Spitfire is not repaired.
• 1936 – 4-5 – Beryl Markham makes the first east-to-west solo crossing of the Atlantic by a woman in a Percival Vega Gull, from Abingdon, BerkshiretoCape Breton Island
• 1936 – Louise Thaden becomes the first woman to win the prestigious coast-to-coast Bendix trophy race.
• 1933 – Florence Gunderson Klingensmith (3 September 1904 – 4 September 1933) was an American Aviator of the Golden Age of Air Racing. She was also a founding member of the Ninety-Nines, a women’s pilot group. She was one of the first women to participate in Air Races with men. Unfortunately, she paid the ultimate price when she was killed in the 1933 National Air Race in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 1929 – First prototype, of three, Gloster Gorcocks, J7501, experimental single-seat, single-bay biplane interceptor, first delivered to the Royal Aircraft Establishment on 16 May 1928, breaks up in the air near Aldershot this date, the pilot bailing out successfully.
• 1924 – First flight of the Naval Aircraft Factory TS as the all-metal Curtiss F4C-1
• 1923 – Maiden Voyage of the first USA airship USS Shenandoah
• 1922 – Lt Jimmy Doolittle flies across the United States in under a day in a de Havilland DH.4. He takes 21 hours 19 min to fly from Pablo Beach, FloridatoRockwell Field, California.
• 1913 – U.S. Army 11th Cavalry 1st Lt. Moss Lee Love becomes the 10th fatality in U.S. army aviation history when his Wright Model C biplane crashes near San Diego during practice for his Military Aviator Test. On 19 October 1917, the newly opened Dallas Love FieldinDallas is named in his honor. Joe Baugher lists the fatal aircraft accident for this date as being Burgess Model J, Signal Corps 18, which dove into the ground killing its pilot.
• 1888 – Edward Hogan in Quebec makes the first parachute descents in Canada from a hot-air balloon.

References[edit]

September 5

• 2012 – Wearing a white costume designed to induce endangered Siberian cranes to follow him, President of Russia Vladimir Putin pilots a motorized hang glider in three brief flights over Russia'sYamal Peninsula in the Arctic, apparently the first time a Russian head of state has piloted an aircraft. Cranes follow him on two of the flights. His flights are part of the "Flight of Hope" project to increase the population of Siberian cranes by using ultralight aircraft to lead the birds on flights that teach them to migrate.^[1][2]

• 2006 – First Fight: Boeing 737-900ER.

• 2005 – An Antonov An-12BP cargo aircraft (reg 4L-SAS) owned by Transaviaservice of Georgia, operated for Galaxy Kavatsi of DRC, and flying with an expired Georgian license overshoots and burns at Goma DRC while stopping en route to Bukavu. Five crew (two Ukrainians, two Georgians, one Congolese) and three minor passengers (Congolese girls) were killed.

• 2005 – Sukhoi Su-33 landing on the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov at 1627 hrs. gets the trap, but arresting wire breaks and the fighter goes off the deck into the North Atlantic, pilot Sub Colonel Yuri Korneev ejecting immediately. Jet sinks in ~1,000 metres of water, pilot deploys raft from his survival pack and is rescued by a Kamov Ka-27P rescue helicopter and brought on board in a "normal condition." According to a source in Naval Headquarters,『it is possible that the pilot also made a mistake during the incident. The jet pilot, according to instructions, should have revved the engine after the cable broke and performed an emergency takeoff. However, the fault of the pilot can be determined only after analysis from the Su-33’s black box,』reported Kommersant. Capt. Of First Rank Igor Dygalo, head of the press center of the Main Staff of the Navy, said that the black box released as it was designed and surfaced after the plane sank. This was the first loss of the type during a "sea flight."

• 2005 – Mandala Airlines Flight 091, a Boeing 737-200, crashes in Medan, Indonesia, killing 103 of the 111 passengers and all 5 crew members on the plane and an additional 47 people on the ground.

• 1994 – The first production version of the advanced McDonnell Douglas Explorer twin-turbine, eight-place helicopter makes its maiden flight at Mesa, Ariz.

• 1986 – Pan Am Flight 73, a Boeing 747, is hijacked on the ground at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan, by Palestinian militants. About twenty passengers and crew out of 379 on board die during a shootout inside the plane.

• 1984 – Landed: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-41-D at 13:37:54 UTC Edwards AFB. Mission highlights: Multiple comsat deployments; first flight of Discovery, test of OAST-1 Solar Array.

• 1983 – Landed: Space shuttle Challenger STS-8 at 07:40:43 UTC. Mission highlights: Comsat deployment, first flight of an African American in space, Guion Bluford; test of robot arm on heavy payloads with Payload Flight Test Article, First night landing.

• 1982 – Douglas Bader, RAF fighter pilot in World War II, died. Bader was a successful fighter pilot, claiming 22 German planes shot down in WWII. He claimed the fifth highest total in the RAF, despite having lost both legs in a pre-war flying accident. He was shot down 1941 and spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp. He made so many escape attempts that the Germans threatened to take his prosthetic legs away from him.

• 1960 – A United States Navy McDonnell F4 H-1 Phantom II sets a world speed record over a 500-km (310.5-mi) closed-circuit course, averaging 1,216.78 mph (1,958.16 km/hr). September 10, 1960 – NORAD carries out Operation Sky Shield, testing US and Canadian radar systems took place on 10 Sep 1960.^[3]

• 1959 – Black Brant (rocket) 1 rocket, a Canadian designed sounding rocket, was first launched.

• 1957 – Royal Canadian Air Force Avro Canada CF-100 Mk.4B, 18455, pulled up, flamed out, went into inverted spin and at the Canadian International Air Show, Toronto, Ontario. F/O's H. R. Norris and R. C. Dougall were killed.

• 1954 – KLM Flight 633, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation, ditches after takeoff from Shannon Airport in Ireland, killing 28 of 56 on board.

• 1950 – To divert enemy attention from the upcoming Inchon landing, U. S. Air Force bombers begin strikes on bridges and roads around Kunsan, Korea. To contribute to the deception over the next few days, carrier aircraft from USS Badoeng Strait (CVE-116) and HMS Triumph (R16) strike roads and bridges to the north of Kunsan, and aircraft from USS Valley Forge (CV-45) and USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) attack targets between Seoul and Pyongyang.

• 1948 – A US Navy Martin JRM Mars sets a new cargo record of 62,262 lb (28,242 kg)

• 1944 – First flight of the Douglas C-74 Globemaster^[4]

• 1943 – 1,700 men of the United States Army’s 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment parachute onto the Japanese airfield at Nadzab, New Guinea, capturing it easily. An airlift of several thousand more Allied troops to the airfield occurs over the next few days.

• 1941 – (5-12) Nine U. S. Army Air Forces B-17D Flying Fortress bombers fly from Hickam Field in Hawaii to Clark Field in the Philippine Islands via Midway Atoll, Wake Island, Port Moresby in New Guinea, and Darwin, Australia.

• 1939 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Navy to organize a Neutrality Patrol to report and track any belligerent air, surface, or underwater naval forces approaching the United States East Coast or the West Indies.

• 1923 – US Army bombers carry out anti-shipping exercises, sinking the obsolete battleships USS Virginia and USS New Jersey.

• 1918 – First flight of the Orenco C

• 1918 – Establishment of Royal Canadian Naval Air Service; authorized to operate two stations in Nova Scotia.

• 1914 – During the Siege of Tsingtao, the Imperial Japanese Navy carries out its first air combat mission. A three-seat Farman seaplane from the Wakamiya bombs German fortifications at Tsingtao, China, and conducts a reconnaissance of Kiaochow Bay.

• 1908 – Goupy No.1, is the world’s first triplane. The French Goupy, was built by Ambroise Goupy, it has three sets of wings; each stacked above the others and is powered by 50-hp Renault engine.

• 1862 – After a dramatic take-off, aeronaut Coxwell and English physicist Glaisher reach 9,000 m.

References[edit]

September 6

• 2012 – A Russian Air Force Mikoyan MiG-29 crashed into a hill near Chilta in the Siberian Military District killing the pilot, all MiG-29 flying was suspended.

• 2011 – Aerocon Flight 238 was a passenger flight which crashed in Trinidad, Bolivia. Eight of the nine people onboard died. The aircraft involved, a Swearingen SA.227BC Metroliner III, was operating Aerocon’s scheduled domestic service from El Trompillo Airport, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, to Teniente Jorge Henrich Arauz Airport, Trinidad. It crashed on approach, 29 km from Trinidad.

• 2009 – A Canadair Silver Star Mk.3 (G-TBRD) crashed shortly after take-off at Duxford Aerodrome, Duxford, Cambridgeshire, UK. The facility is part of the Imperial War Museum Duxford and the privately owned T-33 Shooting Star in Royal Canadian Air Force livery (RCAF - 261) suffered a stall after rotation, clipping trees and crashing 1-mile (1.6 km) from the runway. The aircraft caught fire and was destroyed in the accident, the 2 crew escaped with minor injuries.

• 2006 – Frontier Airlines operated a new airline named Lynx Aviation (United States).

• 2005 – A small aircraft near Goma DRC, killing the pilot and injuring passengers.

• 1997 – Royal Brunei Airlines Flight 238, a Dornier Do 228, crashes into a hill side in Lambir Hills National Park, killing all 10 on board.

• 1985 – Midwest Express Airlines Flight 105, a DC-9, crashes after takeoff from Milwaukee, Wisconsin because of engine failure and pilot error. All 31 people on board are killed.

• 1983 – The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight KAL-007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.

• 1981 – A United States Air Force Northrop T-38A-75-NO Talon, 68-8182, '1', of the Thunderbirds display team crashed on take-off at Cleveland, Ohio, United States following a bird strike. The team leader, Lt. Col. David L. Smith, was killed and the teams displays for the rest of the year are cancelled.

• 1976 – Viktor Belenko of the Soviet Union defects to the West, landing his MiG-25 FoxBat in Japan.

• 1971 – Paninternational Flight 112, a BAC One-Eleven, suffers dual engine failure just after takeoff and crashes onto the A7 near Hamburg Airport, killing 22 of 121 on board.

• 1970 – The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine orchestrates the Dawson's Field hijackings of El Al Flight 219 (Boeing 707), Pan Am Flight 93 (Boeing 747), Swissair Flight 100 (Douglas DC-8), TWA Flight 741 (Boeing 707), and (on September 9) BOAC Flight 775 (Vickers VC10); the unprecedented scale of the incident draws international outrage and plays a major role in instigating the eventual widespread implementation of air passenger screening, heretofore done only haphazardly and inconsistently; Flight 93 is the first loss of the Boeing 747.

• 1965 – Flying an F-104A Starfighter, Pakistan Air Force Flight Lieutenant Aftab Alam Khan intercepts four Indian Air Force Dassault Mystère IV fighter-bombers strafing a train. He shoots down one of them using an AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile, the first air-to-air kill by a Mach 2 aircraft using a guided missile.

• 1960 – A North American GAM-77 Hound Dog missile launched from a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress over the Eglin Air Force Base, Florida test range at approximately 2 p.m. this date goes astray, coming down on a farm near Samson, Alabama.

• 1952 – Prototype de Havilland DH 110, WG236, flown by John Derry and flight observer Anthony Richards disintegrates at the Farnborough Air Show during pull out from high speed dive, killing both crew, debris, including engines, falls among crowd killing 29 spectators. Another source cites 28 dead. It was eventually established that disintegration had followed structural failure of the wing (possibly weakened earlier), almost certainly resulting from violent tail flutter.

• 1948 – A de Havilland DH.108 breaks the sound barrier, the first British aircraft to do so.

• 1945 – Captured German Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 V14, makes the first helicopter crossing of the English Channel when it was moved from Cherbourg to RAF Beaulieu

• 1944 – Bell P-39 Airacobra #42-18290 crashes southwest of Victorville Army Airfield, Victorville, California. Pilot 2nd Lt. Pat L. Montgomery is killed instantly.

• 1944 – First prototype (and only one completed) McDonnell XP-67 Moonbat, 42-11677, suffers fire in starboard engine during functional test flight at 10,000 feet (3,000 m). Pilot E.E. Elliot manages to bring stricken airframe into Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri, flames gut the fuselage, engine nacelle and wheelwell before fire fighters halt blaze. As the jet-engined project that will become the FD-1 Phantom is already on the horizon, the project is cancelled.

• 1943 – P/O DF McRae and crew, flying a Vickers Wellington of No. 179 (RAF) Squadron, attacked and badly crippled the German submarine U-760. The submarine was forced to Vega Harbour, Spain, where it was interned.

• 1943 – (Overnight) 180 Axis aircraft attack an Allied convoy anchored in the harbor at Bizerte, Tunisia, but a smoke screen prevents them from scoring any hits.

• 1940 – The first production Douglas scout bomber (SBD) is delivered to the U. S. Navy. The aircraft is given the name “Dauntless. ”

• 1936 – Italian aircraft arriving in Majorca establish a Nationalist bombing capability against Republican Spain.

• 1929 – Flying the Wright XF3 W-1 Apache equipped with floats, United States Navy Lieutenant Apollo Soucek sets a world altitude record for seaplanes, climbing to 38,500 feet (11,735 m).

• 1929 – Schneider Trophy race flown at Calshot Spit, UK. Won by Flt. Off. Henry Waghorn in a Supermarine S.6 at 528.9 km/h (328.7 mph).

• 1916 – The Roland (Luftfahrzeug Gesellschaft mbH, or LFG) Adlershof, Berlin, Germany, aircraft plant burns, destroying seven complete aircraft, including the prototype LFG Roland C.III (and only one built), as well as ten fuselages. Assembly jigs and fixtures, models and some drawings are salvaged and production resumes a week later in commandeered Automobile Exhibition Hall.

• 1914 – The first air-sea battle in history occurs when Imperial Japanese Navy Farman seaplanes make an unsuccessful attempt to bomb German and Austro-Hungarian ships in Kiaochow Bay during the Siege of Tsingtao.

• 1912 – Capt. Patrick Hamilton and Lt. Wyness-Stuart of the Royal Flying Corps are killed when their Deperdussin monoplane breaks up in flight, crashing at Graveley, near Welwyn. The 60 hp (45 kW) Anzani-powered aircraft had been taken on strength by the army in January 1912.

• 1910 – Blanche Stuart Scott makes the first solo airplane flight by a woman in the United States subsequently recognized by the Early Birds of Aviation.

• 1893 – Claire Chennault, American pilot famous for commanding the “Flying Tigers” during World War II, was born.

References[edit]

September 7

• 2011 – Yak-Service Flight 9634, a Yakovlev Yak-42, crashes just outside of Yaroslavl, Russia due to pilot error, killing 44 of the 45 people on board. Many were players and staff of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team of the KHL, as the flight was destined for Minsk, Belarus for a league game.

• 2010 – Alrosa Mirny Air Enterprise Flight 514, operated by Tupolev Tu-154M RA-85684 suffered a complete electrical failure in flight. A successful emergency landing was made at Izhma Airport, Russia but the aircraft overran the runway. All 81 passengers and crew escaped uninjured. The aircraft involved was repaired in 2011.^[1]

• 2009 – P-827, a GAF Nomad N.24 A operated by the Indonesian Navy, crashes at Long Ampung Airport, killing five of the nine people on board.

• 2009 – An Indonesian Air Force Government Aircraft Factories Nomad P837 on a routine flight crashes near a local village of Sekatak Matadau, Bulungan district in East Kalimantan killing 4 of the 9 passengers and crew.

• 2007 – A Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low IV, 69-05794, of the 20th Special Operations Squadron, Hurlburt Field, crashes near Duke Field, Eglin Auxiliary Field 3, just before midnight when it suffers tail rotor gear box failure while in a hover. The helicopter was practicing a rescue extraction near a landing zone surrounded by trees more than 90 feet (27 m) tall and had just been brought into a hover at 150 feet (46 m) and was beginning to lower the rescue apparatus when the aircrew felt a shudder. Aircraft commander Lt. Col. Eugene Becker realizes that the tail rotor gears are failing, takes control of the aircraft and prepares to land. Once out of hover, it takes about 45 seconds to return to the LZ, and due to the confined space, Becker drops the chopper vertically but the shuddering worsens. "We knew something was very, very wrong", stated Becker. "all of the gear boxes were surging up and down and making quite a bit of racket." When the MH-53 is 20 feet (6.1 m) above the ground Becker pushes what is left of the rotor's power to the maximum in order to cushion the landing. As soon as the Pave Low hits the ground, the tail rotor fails and the chopper starts spinning and rolls to port, but the sponson fuel tanks keep it from rolling over. Of the seven crew, only two are injured: Col. William Nelson, a flight surgeon from the Air Force Special Operations Command Surgeon General's Office, receives a head injury but walks away from the accident; MH-53 aerial gunner A1C Bradley Jordan suffers a leg fracture. Both men are released from hospital the following day. Lt. Col. Becker is awarded the Koren Kolligian Jr. trophy, one of the Air Force's top safety awards, in July 2008. According to the award nomination, a landing any more forceful could have been fatal to the crew.

• 2007 – CH-53D Sea Stallion (157146) from HMH-463 made nighttime hard landing in Al Anbar Province and later was written off.^[2]

• 2004 – Indonesian human-rights and anti-corruption activist Munir Said Thalib dies of arsenic poisoning on a Garuda Indonesia flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The victim of an assassination, he apparently had been poisoned during a stopover in Singapore.

• 1997 – First flight of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. It reaches an altitude of 15,000 feet in less than three minutes.

• 1995 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-69 at 15:09:00 UTC. Mission highlights: Wake Shield Facility, SPARTAN.

• 1988 – The McDonnell Douglas F-15 S/MTD (short takeoff and landing/maneuvering technology demonstrator) flies for the first time.

• 1966 – Second (of five) Ling-Temco-Vought XC-142As, 62-5922, suffers failure of idler gear in number three engine gearbox during a pre-flight run-up at Edwards AFB, California. Entire gearbox has to be replaced. Investigation reveals problem with inadequately supported aluminum pin that serves as an axle for this gear, making misalignment and eventual failure inevitable, so a fix is designed and the starboard gearboxes of all XC-142s are modified.

• 1965 – First flight of the AH-1 Cobra

• 1956 – The Bell X-2 research aircraft is flown by Captain Iven C. Kincheloe to a new altitude record of 126,200 ft (38,466 m).

• 1955 – First flight of the Sukhoi S-1, prototype of Su-7

• 1951 – First flight of the Auster B.4 G-AMKL

• 1946 – A Royal Air Force Gloster Meteor flown by Group Captain E. M. Donaldson establishes a new world absolute air speed record of 615.65 mph (990.79 km/h) off the coast of West Sussex, England, . The same day, a U. S. Army Air Forces Republic P-84 Thunderjet narrowly misses the world record, setting a United States speed record of 611 mph (983 km/hr).

• 1944 – 108 B-29 Superfortresses bomb the Showa Steel Works in Anshan, Manchuria, from bases in China.

• 1943 – P/O EM O’Donnell and crew in a Vickers Wellington of No. 407 Squadron, sank the German submarine U-669 to the west of the Bay of Biscay.

• 1942 – Entered Service: Vought F4U Corsair with United States Marine Corps Marine Fighter Squadron 124

• 1942 – First flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator.

• 1940 – First flight of the Blohm & Voss BV 222

• 1940 – Hermann Göring orders the Luftwaffe to stop targeting British airfields and attack London itself instead.

• 1940 – 7-8 – The largest mass air combat in history takes place over Britain, with 1,200 British and German aircraft operating in an area of only 24 x 48 km (15 x 30 miles)

• 1938 – A mass flight of 17 U. S. Navy aircraft makes a 2,570-statute mile (4,138 km) nonstop flight from San Diego, California, to Hawaii in 17 hours 21 min.

• 1934 – 16 – 9,537 km race over Europe and North Africa and a speed trial of the Challenge 1934 contest.

• 1933 – 7-8 – six US Navy Consolidated P2Y flying boats make a non-stop formation flight from Norfolk, Virginia to the Panama Canal, covering 2,059 miles (3,314 km) in 25 hours 20 min.

• 1932 – Thomas Settle and Winfield Bushnell set a new balloon distance record of 1,550 km (963 miles) between Basle, Switzerland and Vilna, Poland.

• 1931 – Lowell Bayles wins the 1931 Thompson Trophy in the Gee Bee Model Z racer at the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio, with a speed of 236.24 mph (380.42 km/hr).

• 1930 – Capt. John Owen Donaldson, World War I ace (eight victories), after winning two races at an American Legion air meet in Philadelphia, is killed when his plane crashes during a stunt-flying performance. He had won the MacKay Gold Medal for taking first place in the Army's transcontinental air race in October 1919. Greenville Army Air Field, South Carolina, is later renamed Donaldson Air Force Base for the Greenville native.

• 1923 – First flight of the Handley Page Type S

• 1917 – First flight of the Port Victoria P.V.8

• 1909 – The U. S. Army’s first “aerodrome”, an airfield or airport, is established in College Park, Maryland.

• 1909 – Eugene Lefebvre is killed in the crash of an aeroplane when his controls jam at Juvisy France when his controls jam. Lefebvre dies, becoming the first ‘pilot’ in the world to lose his life in a powered-heavier-than-air-craft.

• 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France for the first time successfully.

• 1904 – The Wright brothers first used their weight-and-derrick-assisted take-off device in order to make themselves independent of the wind and weather. When the heavy weight was released, the rope pulled the aircraft, which sat on a flatbed truck, over the launching track, thus assisting its take-off.

• 1804 – Zambeccari and two companions, Grasetti and Andreoli, ascend in Bologna attempting to cross the Adriatic, but have to be rescued after one day at sea.

References[edit]

September 8

• 2015 - British Airways Flight 2276 rejected takeoff due to an engine failure, the aircraft came to a stop and all passengers and crew evacuated safely with only 14 minor injuries, the aircraft, a Boeing 777-236ER was badly damaged in the incident.

• 2012 – A Russian Army Mil Mi-35 crashed into a mountain in bad weather near North Cuacauss republic of Dagestan, all four on board killed.

• 2009 – Russian airline KD Avia suspends flights.

• 2007 – Bangalore plane crash occurred when a Partenavia P.68 C aircraft, owned by Joy Alukkas Group, crashed into Gowdanapalya Lake, near Bangalore, INDIA. All four aboard the plane were killed, including three pilots: flying officer Santosh Kumar, Sunil Joseph and Mohammed Shabbeer who died instantaneously, and Co-pilot K Shanmugam who died in NIMHANS hospital.

• 2005 – Two (2) EMERCOM Il-76 aircraft landed at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock, Arkansas. This marks the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America.

• 2004 – The unmanned NASA spacecraft Genesis crashes when its parachute fails to deploy, destroying some of the solar wind samples it was carrying back to earth.

• 2004 – CH-46E Sea Knight 153372 Shot down by RPG Fire South of Camp Fallujah, crashes and is burned out near Al-Buaisa. All four crew members injured.^[1][2]

• 2000 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-106 at 8:45:47 a.m EDT. Mission highlights: ISS supply.

• 1999 – The Helios Prototype flew for the first time at Dryden. The Helios is a research aircraft developed to demonstrate the ability to reach and sustain horizontal flight at 100,000 feet altitude on a single-day flight, and to maintain flight above 50,000 feet altitude for at least four days, both on electrical power derived from non-polluting solar energy. The flight concluded prematurely after a small parachute, designed to keep the aircraft within a restricted airspace zone over the lakebed in case of a loss of control, unexpectedly deployed after an apparent electrical system failure.

• 1997 – The Boeing 777-300 is rolled out. At 73 m (242 feet) it is the longest airliner ever built. This title will be claimed by the Airbus A340-600in2001.

• 1994 – USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737, crashes while attempting to land at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killing all 133 people on board. Investigations showed that a fault in the Boeing 737 rudder was to blame for the crash.

• 1989 – Partnair Flight 394, a Convair 580, crashes into the North Sea after its tail section falls off in mid-air. All 55 people on board perish. The cause is blamed on counterfeit aircraft parts.

• 1980 – Oleg Grigoriyevich Kononenko, 42, a civilian test pilot selected for cosmonaut training in June 1980, to become a pilot for the Buran space shuttle, is KWF in the crash of a Yakovlev Yak-38A during take-off from the aircraft carrier Minsk in the South China Sea.

• 1970 – US Marine Corps Capt. Patrick G. Carroll, 27, of El Toro, California, ejects safely Tuesday moments before his McDonnell Douglas A-4 Skyhawk crashes in a remote area 20 miles N of Big Bear, California in Lucerne Valley at 1528 hrs. The impact touches off a 30-acre brushfire in Lovelace Canyon, south and west of the Lucerne Valley, which was still burning the following day. Eight retardant-dropping fire bombers are diverted from another blaze near Devore, California in the Cajon Pass to help contain the burn. A total of 12 California Division of Forestry and other trucks are also dispatched to the site to fight the fire. The pilot, who was flying N over Big Bear Lake on a navigation training flight, suffered an undetermined malfunction, said a public information spokesman at MCAS El Toro, California. He was seen as he ejected by a gas company serviceman, James Kennedy, who picked him up and drove him to near-by Sky-High Ranch. Carroll, a Vietnam veteran, is picked up by a rescue helicopter from George Air Force Base, California, and was not injured. Firefighters were hindered by rough, rocky terrain and a truck that overturned on an access road, blocking the path for over an hour. Fire crew were lifted to the site by helicopter or had to walk in 1 1/2 miles from Highway 18 near the Lucerne Valley. CDF officials expected the blaze to be contained by 1800 hrs., 9 September, unless winds developed.

• 1974 – TWA Flight 841, a Boeing 707, breaks up after a bomb explodes in the cargo hold and plunges into the Ionian Sea, killing all 88 on board.

• 1968 – First flight of the SEPECAT Jaguar

• 1967 – NASA launches the lunar lander Surveyor 5. Eventually it shoots and transmits 19,049 photographs back to Earth.

• 1960 – President Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

• 1952 – The first of 35 Fairchild C-119 Boxcar aircraft were taken on RCAF strength.

• 1944 – The first German V-2 rockets explode in London and Antwerp.

• 1943 – German aircraft attack Allied convoys south of Sicily, sinking a tank landing craft and damaging other ships.

• 1943 – 131 U. S. Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortresses conduct a bombing raid against the headquarters of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring at Frascati, Italy, killing 485 civilians.

• 1943 – Italy’s surrender to the Allies is proclaimed.

• 1939 – Five French Air Force Curtiss H75 fighters engage a squadron of German Messerschmitt Bf 109 s and shoot down two. They are the first French air-to-air victories of World War II, as well as the first by any of the Western Allies.

• 1939 – First flight of the Vultee 48, a prototype of the P-66 Vanguard

• 1927 – The Cessna company is established.

• 1920 – The final leg is added to the US transcontinental airmail service, across the Rocky Mountains from OmahatoSacramento.

• 1914 – Imperial Russian Army pilot Pyotr Nesterov attempted an aerial ramming against an Austro-Hungarian reconnaissance Albatros B.II with his Morane-Saulnier. He most likely tried to hit it with his landing gear but accidentally used his propeller instead. As a result, both planes crashed killing Nesterov and the two in the opposing plane over Zhovkva, Ukraine.

• 1912 – The Argentine Air Force is formed as a flying school at El Palomar, the military airport near Buenos Aires.

• 1909 – Samuel Cody flies from Aldershot to Farnborough and back (46 miles in 1 h and 3 min). The first recorded cross-country flight in the United Kingdom.

• 1856 – The first Canadians to fly are A. E. Kierzkowski and A. X. Rambau, who flew in Eugene Godard’s balloon.

References[edit]

September 9

• 2012 – Launch: Spot-6 satellite

• 2009 – Egyptian airline Air Arabia Egypt announces that operations will start in late 2009 or early 2010.

• 2009 – Aeroméxico Flight 576, a Boeing 737-800 with 104 passengers on board, is hijacked whilst flying from Cancún to Mexico City; after landing at Mexico City International Airport, Mexican officials storm the plane and take 5 men into custody; there are no casualties.

• 2006 – First flight of the Boeing 747 Large Cargo Freighter.

• 2006 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-115 at 15:14:55 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 12A: P3/P4 Truss, Solar Arrays.

• 2005 – An Antonov operated by Air Kasai in the DRC crashes 50 km north of Brazzaville killing 14 including 4 crew on a flight from Buendé to Kinshasa

• 2005 – A Belgian Air Force F-16AM crashes at the Vliehors Shooting Range. The pilot is killed.

• 2004 – A low-flying British Army Westland Lynx AH.9 helicopter, ZE382, of 661 Squadron, 1st Regiment, Army Air Corps (until March 1957, No. 661 Squadron RAF), is caught in high-voltage electric wires during an Anglo-Czech joint military training exercise near the village Kuroslepy (near Brno). All six persons on board died.

• 1994 – Space Shuttle Discovery makes its 20th trip to orbit for mission STS-64.

• 1994 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-64 at 6:22:35 pm EDT. Mission highlights: Multiple science experiments; SPARTAN.

• 1994 – A Tu-22 acting as a chase aircraft to photograph an Aeroflot Tu-134, collides with the Aerflot jet over Zhukovsky, killing 7. The Tu-134 (RA-65760) fell into a forest and the Tu-22 managed to land safely.

• 1990 – Rimantas Antanas-Antonovich Stankiavicius (1944–1990), a Lithuanian test pilot selected as a cosmonaut and serves as a pilot for the Buran, is killed in the crash of a Sukhoi Su-27 fighter, '14 Red', at the Salgareda Air Show at Treviso, Italy. Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wlnnZZsx2k&feature=related

• 1988 – Vietnam Airlines Flight 831, a Tupolev Tu-134, crashes on approach to Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok. 76 of the 90 passengers and crew on board are killed.

• 1982 – A Royal Swedish Air Force Saab Viggen crashed into Mount Hirvasaive, Lappland, pilot killed.

• 1980 – Island Air, a Hawaiian airline, started operations.

• 1979 – Two RAF Hawker-Siddeley Harrier GR.3s, XV757, piloted by former Red Arrows leader Wing Commander Richard Duckett, and XZ128, piloted by Flight Lieutenant C. Gowers, both of 1 Squadron, collide in midair over Wisbech, Cambs., UK. Both pilots eject but wreckage comes down on town, one impacting on Ramnoth Road, destroying three houses and killing former Wisbech Mayor W.E.M. Trumpess, R.W. Bowers, and his son Jonathon, aged 2. The other airframe impacts in New Drove on the outskirts of town, fortunately without further casualties.

• 1977 – Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo, and Ed Yost depart Marshfield, Massachusetts, in the balloon Double Eagle in an attempt to make the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a balloon. They fail when they are forced to abort the flight on September 13 off Iceland.

• 1970 – To pressure British authorities into releasing Leila Khaled, a PFLP sympathizer hijacks BOAC Flight 775, a Vickers VC10 flying from Bahrain to Beirut with 114 people on board, and forces it to land at Dawson’s Field in Jordan.

• 1969 – Allegheny Airlines Flight 853, a Douglas DC-9, collides in flight with a Piper PA-28 Cherokee and crashes near Fairland, Indiana, killing all 83 occupants aboard the two aircraft.

• 1966 – The Concorde's Rolls-Royce Olympus engine begins flight tests underneath an Avro Vulcan bomber

• 1964 – First production Beechcraft King Air rolls off the assembly line.

• 1958 – Two Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers collide over the town of Airway Heights near Fairchild AFB, Washington. Boeing B-52D Stratofortress, 56-661, and Boeing B-52D, 56-681, both crash. Thirteen crew members are killed, while three survive. There were no casualties on the ground.

• 1955 – American Airlines, TWA, and United Airlines agree to adopt a domestic "coach class" for transcontinental flights across the United States.

• 1949 – In order to kill his wife Rita, Albert Guay conspires with Généreux Ruest and Marguerite Pitre to plant a dynamite bomb in Rita Guay’s luggage aboard Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108, a Douglas DC-3. The bomb explodes in mid-flight over Cap Tourmente near Sault-au-Cochon, Quebec, Canada, en route from Quebec City to Baie-Comeau, Quebec, killing Rita Guay and all of the other 22 people on board. Albert Guay, Ruest, and Pitre all will be hanged for the crime, the worst mass murder in Canadian history at the time.

• 1949 – First flight of the Lavochkin La-200, a Soviet two-seater, swept winged, Night and Bad Weather Jet Interceptor Fighter.

• 1945 – Consolidated B-32 Dominator, 42-108532, "Hobo Queen II", is damaged when the nose wheel accidentally retracts on the ground at Yontan Airfield, Okinawa. Two days later, a hoist lifting the B-32 drops it twice. Since the war has ended, it is not repaired but is disassembled at the airfield.

• 1943 – In Operations Avalanche and Slapstick, Allied forces land at Salerno and Taranto, Italy, respectively. The British aircraft carriers HMS Illustrious, HMS Formidable, and HMS Unicorn and escort aircraft carriers HMS Attacker, HMS Battler, HMS Hunter, and HMS Stalker cover the landings In an innovation at Salerno, U. S. Army Air Forces P-51 Mustangs of the 111th Fighter Squadron join the more vulnerable U. S. Navy floatplanes of American light cruisers in spotting fire for naval gunfire against German forces ashore The German Luftwaffe puts up only minor opposition to the landings, with only four air raid alerts occurring during the day.

• 1943 – Italian battleship Roma is sunk by two Fritz X radio controlled glide bombs.

• 1943 – During carrier compatibility trials, test pilot Capt. Eric "Winkle" Brown crashlands Fairey Firefly F Mk.I, Z1844, on the deck of HMS Pretoria Castle when arrestor hook indicator light falsely shows "down" position. Fighter hits crash barrier, shears off undercarriage, shreds propeller, but pilot unhurt.

• 1942 – An Imperial Japanese Navy Yokosuka E14Y floatplane (Allied reporting name “Glen”) launched by the submarine I-25 makes two attacks against the coast of Oregon in the United States, dropping four 76-kg (167.5-lb) phosphorus bombs in an attempt to start forest fires. They become known as the Lookout Air Raids. It is the only time that an enemy aircraft bombs the continental United States during World War II.

• 1942 – The British escort aircraft carrier HMS Avenger joins Convoy PQ 18, bound from Loch Ewe, Scotland, to Archangel in the Soviet Union, as an escort. She is the first aircraft carrier to escort an Arctic convoy.

• 1940 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal strike Cagliari, Sardinia, inflicting more damage under heavy fire.

• 1929 – First flight of the de Havilland Puss Moth

• 1928 – (9 – 10) First successful trans-Tasman flight: Charles Kingsford Smith and crew in the Southern Cross.

• 1923 – First flight of the Curtiss R2 C-1

• 1913 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin, L 1, LZ14, pushed down into the North Sea in a thunderstorm, drowning 14 crew members. This was the first Zeppelin incident in which fatalities occurred.

• 1922 – Cpt Frank Barnard wins the first King's Cup air race, flying from England to Scotland and back in 6 hours 32 min in a de Havilland DH.4.

• 1916 – First flight of the Bristol F.2 Fighter

• 1913 – First pilot to fly a loop: Pyotr Nesterov in a Nieuport IV.

• 1913 – Maurice Prevost reaches 204 km/h with the "Deperdussin-racing aeroplane".

• 1913 – The first fatalities aboard a German airship occur when the Imperial German Navy dirgible L-1 is forced down into the North Sea during a thunderstorm, killing 16 of the 22 men on board. Among the dead is the commanding officer of the Naval Airship Division, Kapitänleutnant Matzing.

• 1911 – The first British airmail flight is made. Gustav Hamel flies from HendontoWindsor.

• 1908 – Orville Wright flies 1 h 3 min and 15 seconds.

• 1830 – Charles Durant, America’s first great balloonist, makes his first U. S. ascent at Castle Garden, New York. He stays in the air for two hours, landing at South Amboy, New Jersey. His skill and enthusiasm inspire a passion for ballooning in America.

References[edit]

September 10

• 2009 – A Spanish Air Force Dassault Mirage F1 crashes in the Cazorla Natural Park, near Jaén, Spain, while in a training flight. The pilot ejected and suffered minor injuries.

• 2009 – An Armada de México Bell 406 Helicopter on a routine patrol crashes near the 27 kilometre post on the Perote-Los Humeros Highway, Veracruz State, Mexico, resulting in 2 crew injured and 3 fatalities.

• 1993 – Boeing finishes production of their 1,000th 747 airplane, 26 years after the 747 program was launched.

• 1989 – Flights began carrying about 8,000 East German refugess who were given permission to leave Hungary. Posing as tourists, they promptly announced they were going to remain in West Germany upon arrival.

• 1981 – British Airways CEO Roy Watts announces a financial crisis for the airline. He states that the company is losing £UK 200 per minute.

• 1976 – In the worst mid-air disaster to this point, 176 people die when a British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident and an Inex Adria Douglas DC-9 collide over Zagreb.

• 1976 – 1976 Zagreb mid-air collision between British Airways Flight 476, a Hawker Siddeley Trident, and Inex-Adria Flight 330, a Douglas DC-9, near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, kills all 176 people on board both aircraft.

• 1975 – A U.S. Army Bell UH-1H Iroquois from Fort Rucker Army Base, Alabama, on a routine training flight crashes and burns three miles SE of Marianna Municipal Airport, Marianna, Florida, killing all three crew, an instructor pilot and two students, military officials said. The identities of the victims was being withheld pending notification of next of kin. Army officials were investigating the cause of the crash.

• 1971 – First flight of the Bell 309 King Cobra N309 J

• 1962 – A USAF Boeing KC-135A-BN Stratotanker, 60-0352, c/n 18127/466, assigned at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, crashes into a fog-shrouded ravine on 5,271-foot tall Mount Kit Carson, ~20 miles NE of Spokane, Washington, at ~1105 hrs. while on approach to Fairchild AFB, Washington, killing four crew and 40 passengers. Thirty-nine were members of the 28th Bomb Wing, being sent TDY to Fairchild while runways were being repaired at Ellsworth. One civilian was on board. The aircraft mowed through a 25 X 200 yard swath of evergreens before striking the terrain and exploding. Visibility was near zero. Col. Floyd R. Cressman, of Fairchild AFB, said that it appeared that the pilot tried to pull up at the last moment. A spokesman at SAC headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska, said that this was the worst accident involving the C-135 type to date.

• 1960 – NORAD carries out Operation Skyshield, testing US and Canadian radar systems.

• 1956 – During first flight of North American F-107A at Edwards AFB, California, prototype, 55-5118, experiences problem with engine gear box differential pressure during a dive, North American test pilot Bob Baker lands on dry lakebed at just under 200 knots (370 km/h), after rolling about a mile, aircraft hits a depression in the lakebed, nose gear collapses. Jet slides ~ three-tenths of a mile on its nose, but suffers limited damage, no fire. Total landing roll was 22,000 feet (6,700 m). Airframe repaired in under two weeks.

• 1956 – Boeing B-50B Superfortress, 47-133, modified as RB-50G with additional radar and B-50D-type nose, of the 6091st Reconnaissance Squadron, out of Yokota Air Base, Japan, disappears over Sea of Japan. Probably went down in Typhoon Emma.

• 1952 – During a dogfight between two piston-engined United States Marine Corps F4U Corsair fighter-bombers from the escort aircraft carrier USS Sicily (CVE-118) and several MiG-15 jet fighters, Corsair pilot Captain Jesse G. Folmar shoots down a MiG-15 before being shot down himself; he survives and is rescued. It is the only Corsair victory over a MiG-15 during the Korean War.

• 1952 – A contractor-led team launches the first Boeing XF-99 Bomarc propulsion test vehicle from the Air Force Missile Test Center (AFMTC) at Patrick AFB, Florida, but the test fails.

• 1950 – (10, 13, and 14) United Nations carrier aircraft soften up targets in the Inchon area in preparation for the landing there.

• 1949 – First flight of the Nord Noratlas

• 1945 – Five escort carriers of the British East Indies Fleet’s 21st Aircraft Carrier Squadron anchor off Singapore to support Operation Zipper, the British reoccupation of Malaya.

• 1944 – Nos. 133 and 135 Squadrons were disbanded.

• 1944 – First flight of the Fairchild C-82 Packet

• 1943 – (10-12) Allied forces detect only 158 German Luftwaffe sorties against the Salerno beachhead. Allied fighters break up most of the German attacks before they reach the beachhead.

• 1942 – The United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command establishes the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), an organization of civilian women pilots who ferry military aircraft from factories to airfields to free male pilots for combat duty.

• 1942 – (Overnight) Royal Air Force Bomber Command employs “Pink Pansy” – A target indicator that creates an instantaneous pink flash – For the first time during a raid by 479 bombers on Düsseldorf, Germany. It is the most successful Pathfinder-led raid yet, but 33 bombers (6.9 percent) are lost.

• 1942 – No. 422 Squadron RCAF, temporarily operating Saro Lerwick flying boats cast off from RAF No. 4 OTU whilst awaiting arrival of Short Sunderlands, suffers loss of L7267 this date when Plt. Off. Hoare crashes on landing at Lough Erne in good weather, airframe breaks up, sinks, but crew escapes safely. This is the final Lerwick write-off as the type is withdrawn from operation, remaining airframes sent to Scottish Aviation in November 1942 for reduction to salvage. Type had been an utter failure, contributions to U-boat war were negligible. None now exist.

• 1940 – The Regia Aeronautica (Italian Royal Air Force) forms the Corpo Aereo Italiano (Italian Air Corps) as an expeditionary force for bombing the United Kingdom alongside the German Luftwaffe from bases in Belgium.

• 1939 – Canada declared war on Germany. RCAF strength at 4061 officers and airmen, eight Permament and twelve Auxiliary squadrons, 270 aircraft of 23 different types. Only the Hurricane was a front-line aircraft.

• 1939 – First RCAF wartime patol was flown from Dartmouth N. S. by F/L DG Price in a No. 5 Squadron Stranraer flying boat.

• 1938 – Germany prohibits all foreign air traffic in its airspace except along specific air corridors.

• 1933 – First flight of the Mignet HM.14

• 1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith and crew make the first successful trans-Tasman flight.

• 1919 – The Schneider Trophy race is flown at Bournemouth, UK. An Italian Savoia S.13 is the only finisher, but is disqualified for missing a turning buoy. When judges ask pilot Guido Janello to complete another lap, he runs out of fuel.

• 1912 – Lts. E. Hotchkiss and C. A. Bettington are killed when their Bristol-Coanda monoplane suffers a structural failure and crashes. This second accident involving a Royal Flying Corps monoplane in five days causes Col. Seely, Secretary of State for War, to issue a ban on monoplanes on 14 September. The ban will be reversed five months later when technical studies show that monoplanes are no more dangerous than biplanes.

• 1908 – At Fort Myer, Orville Wright sets a world flight endurance record of 1 h 5 min and 52 seconds.

• 1907 – First flight of the British Army Dirigible No 1 (christened Nulli Secundus ), the British Army‘s first airship.

References[edit]

September 11

• 2004 – A Hellenic Army Boeing-Vertol CH-47SD Chinook, EZ-916, of 4 TEAS, ditches into the Aegean Sea off Mount Athos, Greece around 1056 hrs. killing all 17 on board. Among those killed was Patriarch Peter VII of Alexandria.

• 2003 – While landing aboard USS George Washington, operating off the Virginia Capes, an McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18D-32-MC Hornet (Lot 13), BuNo 164198, c/n 961/DO63, 'AD 432', of VFA-106, goes off the angle at ~1600 hrs. when the arresting cable parts, pilot ejects and is recovered. The broken cable, whipping back across the deck, injures eleven deck crew, the most serious of which are airlifted to shore medical facilities. Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OxMox2Kdxs&feature=related

• 2001 – United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757-200 with 44 people on board, is hijacked after taking off from Newark, New Jersey; passengers struggle with the hijackers, and the aircraft crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all on board.

• 2001 – American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757-200 with 64 people on board, is hijacked after taking off from Dulles International Airport and is flown into The Pentagon; all on board are killed as well as 125 people in the building and on the ground

• 2001 – United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767-200 with 65 people on board, is hijacked after taking off from Boston and is flown into the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City; all on board are killed as well as others on the ground and in the building; the collapse of both towers brings the total death toll from the two crashes to at least 2,759.

• 2001 – American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767-200ER with 92 people on board, is hijacked after taking off from Boston, and is flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City; all on board are killed as well as others on the ground and in the building.

• 1997 – NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor reaches Mars.

• 1996 – First flight of the Boeing Bird of Prey, an American black project aircraft, intended to demonstrate stealth technology.

• 1994 – Death of Friedrich Schmiedl, Austrian Rocket pioneer.

• 1991 – Death of Rudolf Kaiser, German glider designer who worked for Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co.

• 1991 – Continental Express Flight 2574, an Embraer 120RT Brasília, crashes on descent in Eagle Lake, Texas, killing all 14 people on board. Maintenance crews traded work shifts during repairs to the horizontal stabilizer, inadvertently leaving 47 bolts missing. Reformers pointed to this error and called for development of a "safety culture".

• 1983 – First flight of the Agusta A129 Mangusta, an Italian attack helicopter and First attack helicopter to be designed and produced wholly in Western Europe.

• 1982 – At an airshow in Mannheim, Germany, celebrating the 375th anniversary of that city, a United States Army Boeing-Vertol CH-47C Chinook, 74-22292, of the 295th Assault Support Helicopter Company—"Cyclones", located at Coleman Army Airfield, Coleman Barracks, near Mannheim, carrying parachutists crashed, killing 46 people. The crash was later found to be caused by an accumulation of ground walnut shells that had been used to clean the machinery.

• 1981 – Giovanni Carta (John Carta) becomes the First man to land with a parachute on the top of the World Trade Center. (he sustained a 50$ fee).

• 1974 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 212, a DC-9, crashes on approach to Charlotte, North Carolina; 72 of 82 people on board are killed.

• 1973 – An AVE Mizar flying car prototype broke-up in flight over Oxnard, California killing the company founder and the pilot.

• 1973 – JAT Airways Flight 769, a Sud Aviation Caravelle, crashes into Mt. Maganik near Kolašin, Montenegro, killing all 41 on board.

• 1972 – General Dynamics F-111A, 65-5703, c/n A1-21, of the 6510th Test Wing, used in spin tests out of Edwards AFB, California, crashes this date, impacting in the desert ~10 miles from the base in a near vertical dive at ~500 knots after the crew ejected in their escape capsule. Crew of Winters and Sharp, okay.

• 1971 – Lockheed C-121 Constellation of the West Virginia Air National Guard, carrying five state governors to a conference in Puerto Rico, experiences engine problems, force-lands at Homestead AFB, Florida. Governors of Connecticut, Minnesota, Montana, Texas and Utah, transfer to another aircraft to continue flight.

• 1970 – First flight of the Britten-Norman Trislander (more formally designated the BN-2 A Mk III Trislander), a British 18-seat three-engined piston-powered civilian utility aircraft.

• 1968 – Air France Flight 1611, a Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle, crashes off Nice, France, after a fire in the cabin, killing 95 passengers and crew.

• 1968 – Air New Zealand flies T. H. Williams, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's navigator to Sydney to commemorate the 40th anniversary of their first trans-Tasman flight

• 1968 – Second prototype Grumman/General Dynamics F-111B, BuNo 151971, c/n A2-02, crashes into the Pacific Ocean killing Hughes pilot Barton Warren and his RIO Anthony Byland.

• 1966 – Death of Collett Everman Woolman, one of four founders of Delta Air Lines.

• 1965 – The US First Cavalry Division arrives in Vietnam with 400 helicopters

• 1956 – Death of William Avery “Billy” Bishop VC, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, DFC, ED, Canadian WWI flying ace, officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian ace, and according to some sources, the top ace of the British Empire.

• 1946 – A Lockheed P2 V-1 Neptune “The Truculent Turtle” sets a new distance record of 11,235 miles (18,082 km), Landing in Columbus, Ohio from Perth, Australia, after a 55 h and 18 min unrefueled flight and with a nine-month-old gray kangaroo, a gift from Australia for the Washington, D. C. zoo.

• 1946 – First flight of the North American FJ-1 Fury, First operational jet aircraft in the US Navy

• 1943 – French fighter ace Pierre Le Gloan (18 victories) died in a crash.

• 1936 – Sole Kellett YG-1 gyrocopter, 35-278, now assigned to the 16th Observation Squadron, is moderately damaged in a takeoff accident at Pope Army Airfield, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, its second at this field this year. Pilot was Hollingsworth F. Gregory.

• 1937 – Birth of Robert Laurel Crippen, US Navy pilot and NASA astronaut.

• 1935 – Birth of Gherman Stepanovich Titov, Soviat air force pilot and cosmonaut.

• 1933 – First flight of the Breguet 521, a French long-range military reconnaissance flying boat.

• 1932 – Polish Challenge 1932 winners, Franciszek Zwirko and Stanislaw Wigura died in an aircrash.

• 1927 – The only Short Crusader, British racing seaplane, crashed during flying tests.

• 1926 – First flight of the Vickers Type 123, a British single-seat biplane fighter prototype built as a private venture.

• 1924 – Canada's first regular airmail service begins, with Laurentide Air Services linking Haileybury with Rouyn.

• 1920 – Edison Mouton flies into Marina Field, San Francisco, to complete the First US transcontinental airmail flight. Having left from New York, it took Mouton and his crew over 75 hours to complete the feat.

• 1918 – Third prototype Vickers Vimy, B9954, crashes during testing - stalls on takeoff with full load at Martlesham Heath, bomb load explodes, pilot killed.

• 1917 – Birth of Donald James Matthew Blakeslee, USAF pilot whose career began as a pilot in the RCAF and flew Spitfire fighter aircraft, during WWII and became a member of the RAF Eagle squadrons. He flew more combat missions against the Luftwaffe than any other American fighter pilot.

• 1917 – French ace Capitaine Georges Guynemer goes missing in action. Kurt Wisserman of Jasta 3 is credited with shooting him down, but his body is never found.

• 1912 – Lieutenant Riccardo Moizo, Italian pilot, is the First pilot to be captured in warfare when his Nieuport makes a forced landing at Azizia during the Libyan campaign. Moizo, at the time of his capture, was the longest serving pilot in the theatre with 11 months and 82 sorties to his name.

• 1911 – Robert Grant Fowler takes off in a Wright biplane from San Francisco to Jacksonville, Florida, for a west to east coast-to-coast journey. It will take four months to complete the journey.

• 1910 – Robert Loraine makes the First aeroplane flight across the Irish Sea, from Holyhead to Howth, in his Farman biplane, but fails to reach the Irish coast when his engine cuts out.

• 1900 – Birth of Semyon Alekseyevich Lavochkin, Soviet aerospace engineer and Soviet aircraft designer.

• 1893 – Birth of James Martin CBE DSc CEng FIMechE FRAeS, British engineer who, with Captain Valentine Baker, was the founder of the Martin-Baker aircraft company which is now a leading producer of aircraft ejection seats.

• 1890 – Birth of Armando de Dominicis, Italian aviation pioneer and WWI pilot.

References[edit]

September 12

• 2012 – Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Air Flight 251, an Antonov An-28, crashes while attempting to land at Palana Airport outside Palana, Russia, killing 10 of the 14 people on board and seriously injuring all four survivors.

• 2009 – An Indian Air Force Mikoyan MiG-21 Bison from the Bhatinda Airforce Station, Punjab, India crashed due to a technical fault near the village of Muktsar-Bhatinda in the Punjab Provence, Pakistan killing the pilot.

• 2008 – British charter airline XL Airways UK, a subsidiary of the XL Leisure Group, ceases operations with immediate effect, due to a deteriorating financial position. 90,000 Britons holidaying abroad are left stranded. It had been the 3rd largest package holiday group in the UK. XL Airways France and Germany are sold and continue operations.

• 1994 – Distraught over breaking up with his third wife, wanting to gain notoriety, and under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, Frank Corder steals a Cessna 150 from Aldino Airport near Baltimore, Maryland, and crashes it onto the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D. C., killing himself. The plane is undetected until seen over the White House lawn, prompting a change in security procedures at the White House.

• 1992 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-47 at 10:23:00.0680 a.m. EDT. Mission highlights: Spacelab-J, Japan funded mission.

• 1991 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-48 at 11:01:59 am EDT. Mission highlights: Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite deployment.

• 1988 – An Grumman F-14A-95-GR Tomcat, BuNo 160409, of VF-143, (also reported as VF-124) suffers an all hydraulic system failure and crashes inverted into a hangar at Gillespie Field, a civil airport in El Cajon, California, San Diego County while attempting to return to NAS Miramar. The pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Jim Barnett, 36, a flight instructor with 10 years of experience flying F-14s, managed to point the crippled jet towards the landing strip at Gillespie Field to reduce civilian casualties, and both he and his backseater, Lt. (j.g.) Randy L. Furtado, 27, a radar intercept officer who was undergoing training, ejected, suffering injuries. The RIO landed in power lines and suffered a fatal broken neck. The crash injured 3 on the ground and destroyed or damaged 19 aircraft and 13 vehicles.

• 1987 – Comox Air Force Museum opens its doors to the public.

• 1980 – In the Florida Commuter Airlines crash, a Douglas DC-3 ditches into the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas, killing all 34 on board.

• 1971 – First flight of the Bede BD-5 N500BD

• 1970 – After removing all hostages from them, PFLP members use explosves to destroy the four empty airliners at Dawson’s Creek and Cairo hijacked on September 6 and 9. By September 30, all hostages from the four planes will be recovered unharmed.

• 1969 – Philippine Airlines Flight 158, a BAC One-Eleven, crashes on approach to Manila International Airport, killing 45 of the 47 passengers and crew on board.

• 1961 – The Hawker P.1127 makes its first transitions from vertical to horizontal flight and back

• 1961 – Air France Flight 2005, a Sud Aviation Caravelle, crashes on approach to Rabat-Salé Airport, killing all 71 people and 6 crew on board.

• 1945 – Pilot 1st Lt. Robert J. Anspach attempts to ferry captured Focke Wulf Fw 190F, FE-113, coded '10', from Newark Army Air Base, New Jersey, where it had been offloaded from the HMS Reaper, to Freeman Field, Indiana for testing. While letting down for refuelling stop at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a faulty electrical horizontal trim adjustment switch goes to full-up position, cannot be manually overridden. Pilot spots small dirt strip, the Hollidaysburg Airport, S of Altoona, Pennsylvania, and makes emergency landing. Upon applying brakes, right one fails immediately, fighter pivots left, landing gear collapses, propeller rips away. Pilot uninjured, but Fw 190 is hauled to Middletown Air Depot, Pennsylvania, and scrapped. Prop ends up on wall of local flying club. The press never gets wind of the accident, nor of the 19 August Messerschmitt Me 262 crash landing at Pittsburgh.

• 1945 – On first flight of Northrop XP-79B, 43-52437, out of Muroc Army Air Base, California, aircraft behaves normally for ~15 minutes, then at an altitude of ~7,000 feet begins a slow roll from which it fails to recover. Pilot Harry Crosby bails out at 2,000 feet but is struck by revolving aircraft and his chute does not deploy. Largely magnesium airframe is totally consumed by fire after impact on desert floor.

• 1943 – Benito Mussolini is freed in a daring rescue by Walter Gerlach in a Fieseler Storch

• 1943 -The British escort carriers Attacker, Battler, Hunter, and Stalker fly off 26 Supermarine Seafires to operate from Paestum airfield in the Salerno beachhead, then withdraw to Palermo, Sicily, to refuel.

• 1942 – After German Bv 138 flying boat snoopers draw away Hawker Sea Hurricane fighters from HMS Avenger, German Heinkel He 111 bombers attack Convoy PQ 18, sinking eight merchant ships with torpedoes.

• 1942 – First flight of the Miles Messenger.

• 1942 – Martin-Baker MB 3, R2492, prototype fighter crashes on its tenth flight after its engine seized shortly after takeoff from RAF Wing at a height of no more than 100 feet. A crank on one of the Napier Sabre II's sleeve valves had failed. While trying to land in a field, Captain Valentine Baker (Company manager, aircraft-designer and test pilot) was forced to turn to port to avoid a farmhouse, a wing clipped the ground, the fighter cartwheeled and burst into flame, killing him.

• 1941 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Victorious strike Glomfjord, Norway, sinking two merchant ships without loss to themselves.

• 1939 – Polish LWS-3 Mewa, (reported in some sources as evacuated to Bulgaria at outbreak of war), crashed this date during evening landing near Przemyśl.

• 1936 – First flight of the Nakajima Ki-34 (Allied reporting name “Thora”).

• 1935 – Prototype Gloster Gladiator, KS200, suffers bad landing at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, ending up on nose, starboard lower wingtip crushed. Repaired, it will survive until late 1942.

• 1934 – First flight of the Hawker Hind

• 1934 – First flight of the Gloster Gladiator

• 1930 – First flight of the Taylor E-2

• 1926 – Curtiss XP-6, 25-423, the fourth Curtiss P-2 reengined with a Curtiss V-1570-1 Conqueror, suffers heavy damage in a landing that results in a ground loop at Selfridge Field, Mount Clemens, Michigan. Pilot was George C. Price. Repaired, the aircraft will finish second in the 1927 Pursuit Plane Race at the National Air Races, at 189.608 miles per hour (305.144 km/h). To McCook Field, Ohio, with project number P-494. Will crash on 25 February 1929.

• 1918 – 627 French and 611 US fighters are brought together for the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. At the time, it is the largest force of aircraft assembled for a single operation.

• 1916 – First flight of the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane

• 1916 – The first pilotless radio-controlled aerial bomb was tested. It was actually a small biplane that could fly radio-guided for 50 miles (80 km) with 308 pounds (140 kg) of bombs aboard.

• 1915 – A Royal Naval Air Service Short S.38, 65, and a Caudron G.III, 3282, collide at Eastchurch, both pilots killed.

• 1908 – At Fort Myer, Orville Wright sets a world record for flight endurance with a passenger (Army Major George O. Squier) of 9 min 6⅓ seconds.

• 1906 – Jacob Ellehammer makes his first flight with his aeroplane “Danemark I” on the tiny island of Lindholm. The plane was attached to the ground by a rope and described a few circles.

• 1900 – The Wright brothers arrive at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to begin their first season of glider experiments there.

• 1886 – 12-13 – Frenchmen Hervé and Alluard achieve a Montgolfiere flight over 24 hours.

References[edit]

September 13

• 2013 – A Syrian Air Force strike in Aleppo kills 11 people.^[1]

• 2010 – Conviasa Flight 2350, operated by ATR 42–400 YV-1010 crashed shortly after take-off from Manuel Carlos Piar Guayana Airport, Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela on a domestic scheduled passenger flight to Del Caribe『Santiago Mariño』International Airport, Porlamar, Isla Margarita. The aircraft was carrying 47 passengers and crew. Initial reports suggest 24 survivors.^[2]

• 2009 – D-ALCO, a McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 operated by Lufthansa Cargo is severely damaged in a heavy landing at Mexico City International Airport. Post landing inspection revealed that there were wrinkles in the fuselage skin and the nose gear was bent. It is reported that the aircraft may be written off.

• 2009 – An Israeli Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16A Block 10A Fighting Falcon 140, ex-78-0337, from the Nevatim Israeli Air Force Base, Beersheba, Israel crashes near the P'nei Chever settlement in the Southern Hebron Hills at 1345 hrs. killing the pilot. The incident occurred during military training including a simulated dogfight with another aircraft. During a sharp turn, the pilot Captain Assaf Ramon the only son Colonel Ilan Ramon who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, suffered either loss of consciousness or mechanical failure leading to the crash.

• 2007 – First flight of the Tecnam P2006T

• 2001 – Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the U. S. after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

• 1997 – Luftwaffe Tupolev Tu-154M, 11+02, c/n 813, call sign GAF 074, of 1 Staffel/FBS (Flugbereitschaft), used for Open Skies treaty verification, collided with a USAF Lockheed C-141B Starlifter, 65-9405, call sign REACH 4201, of the 305th AMW, about 120 km (75 mi) W of the coast of Namibia over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 24 aboard the Tu-154 and all nine on the C-141. Accident investigations by both countries, released 31 March 1998, found that the Tu-154 was flying at the wrong altitude, 35,000 feet (11,600 m.) instead of 39,000 feet (12,900 m.), and was thus primarily at fault. Contributory factor was chronically poor ATC in the area.

• 1994 – The Airbus Beluga makes its maiden flight.

• 1982 – Spantax Flight 995, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30CF, is destroyed by fire after an aborted take-off at Málaga, Spain; fifty of the 294 on board die.

• 1978 – First flight of the Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma F-WZJA

• 1974 – The U. S. Air Force SR-71 Blackbird 61-17972, flown by Captain Harold B. “Buck” Adams (pilot) and Major William C. Machorek (reconnaissance systems officer), flies 5,447 miles (8,771 km) from London to Los Angeles in a world record 3 hours 47 min 39 seconds at an average speed of 1,435.59 mph (2,311.74 km/h).

• 1971 – Lin Biao, second-in-charge of the People’s Republic of China, is killed in the crash of a Hawker Siddeley Trident near Öndörkhaan, Mongolia.

• 1965 – A new hot air balloon altitude record is set of 9,770 ft (2,978 m)

• 1955 – Six people were killed when a North American B-25 suffered engine failure on takeoff from Mitchel Field, NY, and crashed into Greenfield Cemetery, Hempstead, NY.

• 1949 – Introduction: North American AJ Savage.

• 1946 – Major General Paul Bernard Wurtsmith (9 August 1906 – 13 September 1946), of Strategic Air Command, is killed when his North American TB-25J-27-NC Mitchell, 44-30227, of the 326th Base Unit, MacDill Field, Florida, crashes at ~1130 hrs. into Cold Mountain near Asheville, North Carolina. In February 1953, the United States Air Force named Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda Township, Michigan, in his honor.

• 1944 – The first Supermarine Spiteful prototype, NN660, a converted Spitfire XIV, first flown 30 June 1944, returning from flight from the A&AEE, Boscombe Down, crashes this date while in unplanned mock combat with a Spitfire at low altitude, killing test pilot Frank Furlong. No reason for the loss is officially established, although after an incident that happened to him, Jeffrey Quill suggests it may have been due to the Spiteful's aileron control rods sticking - previous Sptifires had used cables. Control rods are checked for binding in all future Spitefuls and the problem does not re-occur. Quill had chosen Furlong for his test team after they had flown together during the Battle of Britain.

• 1943 – Off Salerno, the American light cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) avoids two German guided bombs, but a guided bomb badly damages the British light cruiser HMS Uganda and another fatally damages a British hospital ship During the evening, 82 C-47 Skytrains and C-53 Skytroopers flying from Sicily drop 600 paratroopers of the United States Army’s 82nd Airborne Division behind Allied lines in the Salerno beachhead.

• 1942 – U. S. Army Air Forces bombers fly a 1,200-mile (1,900 km) round-trip raid against Japanese forces at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands from Umnak for the last time. They will begin flying raids from Adak, 400 miles (640 km) closer to Kiska, the following day.

• 1940 – The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Mitsubishi A6 M Zero fighter scores its first aerial victories, when a flight of Zeroes attacks 27 Nationalist Chinese fighters over Chungking and claims to have destroyed all of them; actual Chinese losses probably are 13 to 24 aircraft. No Zeroes are lost.

• 1935 – Millionaire film producer and amateur air racer Howard Hughes shattered the world land plane speed record in his home built Hughes Racer airplane.

• 1931 – The United Kingdom wins the Schneider Trophy outright. Lt. John Boothman completes the course at Calshot Spit in a Supermarine S.6B at 547.297 km/h (340.1 mph).

• 1928 – In an effort to speed up the time it takes for mail to reach the United States via Europe, a single-engined Liore et Oliver LeO 198 airplane is catapulted off the Ile de France ocean liner, reducing the time it takes mail to reach the United States by one whole day.

• 1913 – Aurel Vlaicu, Romanian engineer and inventor, dies near Câmpina, Romania, while attempting to fly across the Carpathian Mountains in his Vlaicu II airplane.

• 1906 – Traian Vuia flies a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft becoming the first fixed wing aircraft to fly in Europe.

• 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully flies his Santos-Dumont 14-bis aircraft at Château de Bagatelle, for the first time.

• 1906 – Oleg Antonov, Soviet aircraft designer is born. (d. 1984).

• 1886 – Amelie Beese, First female German aviator and sculptor was born.

References[edit]

September 14

• 2012 – Yousef Assad, a high-ranking Syrian Air Force officer and relative of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, announces his defection to the opposition in an online video.^[1]

• 2011 – Angolan Air Force crash: An Embraer EMB 120 Brasília, operated by the Angolan Air Force, crashed just after takeoff from Nova Lisboa Airport, killing 11 army officers (including three generals) and six civilians. The accident occurred at 11:30 am at the airport, with a military delegation on board the flight at Albano Machado Airport.

• 2011 – The Libyan rebel National Transitional Council reports that it has captured the Libyan government military airbase at Brak.^[2]

• 2009 – Lufthansa Flight 288, a Fokker 100 operated by Contact Air, registration D-AKFE, makes an emergency belly landing at Stuttgart Airport, Germany, after the undercarriage fails to deploy correctly.

• 2008 – Aeroflot Flight 821, a Boeing 737, crashes on approach to Perm Airport from Moscow due to pilot error, killing all 88 people on board in the worst ever accident involving the Boeing 737-500.

• 2006 – A US Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16CJ/D Block 50B Fighting Falcon, 91-0337, of the 22d Fighter Squadron, 52d Fighter Wing, based out of Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, crashes in the nearby village of Oberkail after a landing gear failure prevents it from making a controlled landing. The pilot, 1st Lt. Trevor Merrell, ejects safely after aiming his aircraft towards a vacant cow pasture, where it crashes, causing no injuries.

• 2004 – An McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18C Hornet of VMFA-212 crashes at Manbulloo Station about 10 M SW of RAAF Tindal, Australia, during a day approach to landing. The pilot ejects and is injured.

• 2003 – Opposing Solo Pilot, Capt. Chris R. Stricklin, in US Thunderbirds Number 6, an Lockheed Martin F-16C Block 32J Fighting Falcon, 87-0327, misjudges his altitude before beginning a Split-S takeoff maneuver at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, ejects in ACES II seat 8/10ths of a second before the aircraft impacts the runway.

• 1999 – Britannia Airways Flight 226A, a Boeing 757, veers off the runway at Girona, Catalonia (Spain) while landing in a thunderstorm and comes to rest in a field, broken apart in two places; 43 on board are injured, two seriously, but a passenger initially diagnosed as "lightly injured" dies five days later of unsuspected internal injuries.

• 1997 – A Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, 81-793, of the 7th Fighter Squadron, 49th Fighter Wing, at Holloman AFB, New Mexico, lost its port wing at 1500 hrs. during a pass over Martin State Airport, Middle River, Maryland during the Chesapeake Air Show and crashed into a residential area of Bowley's Quarters, Maryland damaging several homes. Four people on the ground received minor injuries and the pilot, Maj. Bryan "B.K." Knight, 36, escaped with minor injuries after ejecting from the aircraft. A month-long Air Force investigation found that four of 39 fasteners for the wing's structural support assembly were apparently left off when the wings were removed and reinstalled in January 1996, according to a report released 12 December 1997.

• 1993 – Lufthansa Flight 2904, an Airbus A320, crashes after overrunning the runway in Warsaw, Poland, killing 2 and injuring 68 of the 72 people on board.

• 1986 – A bomb explodes in outside of Ginpo Airport, suburb of Seoul, South Korea, killing five and injuring twenty-nine.

• 1984 – 14-18 – Joe Kittinger makes the first solo transatlantic balloon flight, from Carbon, Maine to Savona, Italy.

• 1983 – The U. S. House of Representatives votes, 416 to 0, in favor of a resolution condemning Russia for shooting down a Korean Air Flight 007.

• 1977 – ABoeing EC-135K, 62-3536, c/n 18519/587, converted from KC-135A-BN Stratotanker, part of the 8th Tactical Deployment Control Squadron, based at Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina, on a joint training mission, departs Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, after a refuelling stop, makes right turn, crashes into steep terrain in the Manzano Mountains, two miles S of the Four Hills housing development, killing all 20 on board.

• 1976 – A F-14 Tomcat rolls off the deck of USS John F. Kennedy and sinks in international waters. A major salvage operation is launched to retrieve the fighter lest it fall into Soviet hands.

• 1973 – Israel shoots down 13 Syrian MIG-21 s.

• 1964 – First prototype EWR VJ 101C, X-1, an experimental German jet fighter VTOL aircraft (VJ stood for『Vertikal Jäger』– German for "Vertical Fighter"), crashes after a normal horizontal take-off, but pilot escapes using Martin-Baker Mk. GA7 zero-zero ejection seat.

• 1963 – First flight of the Mitsubishi MU-2

• 1963 – Sikorsky HSS-1N Seabat, BuNo 147632, c/n 58-1150, coded '142', ex-'H-6', of 8 Squadron of the Koninklijke Marine, is heavily damaged while being moved by elevator to the flight deck aboard the Hr. Ms. Karel Doorman. Repairs undertaken by Henschel.

• 1961 – The 1961 F-84 Thunderstreak incident, was an incident during the Cold War, in which two Republic F-84 F Thunderstreak fighter-bombers of the JaBoG 32 of the West German Luftwaffe crossed into East German airspace because of a navigational error, before landing at Berlin Tegel Airport. The two planes successfully evaded a large number of Soviet fighter planes by finding cover in a heavy layer of clouds, but also by the actions of the corporal at the USAF flight control at Berlin Tempelhof Airport who ordered the planes on to Berlin rather than forcing them to turn around and face the pursuing fighter planes. The event came at a historically difficult time in relations between the two Germanies. Only a month before, the Berlin Wall had been built, which completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. It also came three days before the West German federal election, held on 17 September 1961.

• 1959 – The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.

• 1955 – USAF Douglas A-26B-45-DL Invader, 44-34126, loses starboard engine on take off from 5,142-foot-long runway 12/30, Mitchel AFB, Long Island, New York, runs through perimeter fence on southeast side of field, comes to rest on the Hempstead Turnpike. Port undercarriage leg collapses, port prop blades bent. No injuries.

• 1948 – Retirement: Brewster F2 A Buffalo by the Finnish Air Force.

• 1944 – The first successful flight into the eye of a hurricane was made by a three-man crew flying a Douglas A-20 Havoc. They demonstrated that valuable scientific information can be obtained in this manner, which is still done today.

• 1944 – Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France, concludes. Penetrating as far as 120 miles (190 km) inland, carrier aircraft from British and American escort aircraft carriers supporting the operation have lost 16 aircraft in combat—all to German ground fire—and 27 to non-combat causes while conducting armed reconnaissance flights targeting German ground forces and providing observer services for naval gunfire. The escort carriers never come under attack from German forces.

• 1944 – 28 Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster bombers operating from Yagodnik airfield in the Soviet Union attack the German battleship Tirpitz in Altenfjord, Norway, with 12,000-lb (5,443-kg) “Tallboy” bombs. They score only one hit, but it so badly damages Tirpitz that she never again is seaworthy.

• 1943 – The Allied Northwest African Air Force conducts large strikes against German ground forces around the Salerno beachhead Off Salerno, An American Liberty ship becomes a total loss after a German guided bomb hits her.

• 1943 – (Overnight) U.S. Army Air Forces transport aircraft drop 1,900 more U.S. Army paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division into the Salerno beachhead.

• 1942 – Chief of Staff of the United States Army General George C. Marshall informs Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest J. King that he is directing the establishment of the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command.

• 1942 – In the first U.S. strike from Adak, the U.S. Army Air Forces fly the first combined zero-altitude strike by fighters and bombers of World War II. Twelve B-24 Liberators, 14 P-38 Lightnings, and 14 P-39 Airacobras attack Japanese forces at Kiska. Flying 240 miles (390 km) at wave-top level and attacking at an altitude of 50 feet (15 m), they sink two Japanese ships and set three on fire and destroy three midget submarines, several buildings, and 12 Japanese floatplane fighters, and kill over 200 Japanese soldiers.

• 1941 – An escort aircraft carrier deploys for combat for the first time, as the Royal Navy’s HMS Audacity puts to sea to escort her first convoy. It is the first time that an aircraft carrier has been committed directly to convoy defense, and the first operation by an aircraft carrier against Axis forces attacking convoys in the Atlantic Ocean since mid-September 1939.

• 1939 – First flight of the Bristol Bolingbroke

• 1939 – First flight of the Sikorsky VS-300, the first helicopter to enter mass production.

• 1939 – The first two RCAF casualties of WWII were lost in a Northrop Delta in New Brunswick. The wreck was recovered 1958.

• 1938 – The Graf Zeppelin II makes its maiden flight. A number of events, including the Hindenburg disaster and a United States refusal to provide helium, prevented the most technologically advanced airship of its day from fulfilling its role as a passenger transport. 19 months later it would be scrapped.

• 1923 – The 1923 Daimler Airway de Havilland DH.34 crash occurred when a de Havilland DH.34 of Daimler Airway operating a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Croydon to Manchester crashed at Ivinghoe Beacon, Buckinghamshire killing all five people on board.

• 1918 – The British aircraft carrier Argus is completed. She is the world’s first aircraft carrier with an unobstructed flight deck from stem to stern.

• 1917 – First flight of the Fairey III.

References[edit]

September 15

• 2010 – DHC-8-103B LN-WIF of Widerøes Flyveselskap was substantially damaged in a hard landing at Sandnessjøen Airport, Stokka when the undercarriage collapsed. The aircraft was operating a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Bodø Airport.^[1]

• 2005 – Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker of the 6th Air Force, 177th Fighter Regiment, during a flight between St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, for unknown reasons veers off its course while travelling over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, enters Lithuanian airspace and crashes in Jurbarkas region, Lithuania. No one is harmed during the incident, and pilot Maj. Velery Troyanov ejects safely.

• 1997 – (15-21) The World Air Games are held in Turkey. They include the 10th FAI World Rally Flying Championship.

• 1991 – First flight of the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

• 1988 – C-GTRT (Tracker) first flew with Pratt and Whitney Canada.

• 1988 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 604, a Boeing 737, crashes on takeoff after suffering multiple bird strikes; 35 of 98 passengers die, all 6 crew survive.

• 1987 – A Eurocopter Panther sets new time-to-altitude records for helicopters in its class

• 1982 – The Douglas Aircraft division of McDonnell Douglas delivers its 2,000th jet airliner, a DC-10 built for United Airlines.

• 1982 – A Greek Air Force F-84F exploded over Larissa, three people on the ground killed.

• 1978 – Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer, dies. (b.1898).

• 1974 – Air Vietnam Flight 706, a Boeing 727, is hijacked and crashes in Phan Rang, Vietnam; all 75 on board die.

• 1974 – On third day of Naval Preliminary Evaluation (NPE-1) testing, first prototype Sikorsky YCH-53E Sea Stallion, BuNo 159121, is destroyed at the Sikorsky plant at Stratford, Connecticut when it rolls onto its side and burns after one of the main rotor blades detaches during a ground run. It had first flown on 1 March 1974. Second prototype is grounded while accident is investigated, flight testing resuming on 24 January 1975.

• 1972 – An SAS domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm was hijacked and flown to Malmö-Bulltofta Airport.

• 1969 – First flight of the Cessna FanJet 500, the prototype which led to the Cessna Citation.

• 1968 – The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

• 1960 – Tasman Empire Airways retires its last flying boat from service.

• 1956 – Introduction: Tupolev Tu-104 with Aeroflot

• 1950 – Task Force 7, centred on five US Navy carriers and one of the Royal Navy, supports the USMC assault on Green Beach, paving the way for the Inchon Landing.

• 1949 – First Convair B-36 Peacemaker loss occurs when B-36B 44-92079, of the 9th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing, crashes into Lake Worth during a night "maximum effort" mission takeoff from Carswell AFB, Texas, killing five of 13 crew. Cause attributed to two propellers going into reverse pitch. Wreckage removed from lake and scrapped.

• 1949 – No. 421 Squadron was reformed at Chathan, New Brunswick, equipped with DH 100 Vampire fighters.

• 1948 – Flying an F-86 A Sabre fighter, U. S. Air Force Major Richard L. Johnson sets a world speed record of 670.981 mph (1,079.6 km/hr).

• 1945 – A flypast of 300 aircraft takes place over London to celebrate Battle of Britain Day on the fifth anniversary of the decisive day of combat in the Battle of Britain. Although two-thirds of the fighter squadrons defending Britain in the battle operated Hawker Hurricanes, not a single Hurricane takes part in the flypast.

• 1945 – Hurricane destroys three wooden blimp hangars at NAS Richmond, Florida, southwest of Miami, with 140 mph winds. Roofs collapse, ruptured fuel tanks are ignited by shorted electrical lines, fire consumes twenty-five blimps (eleven deflated), 31 non-Navy U.S. government aircraft, 125 privately owned aircraft, and 212 Navy aircraft. Thirty-eight Navy personnel injured, civilian fire chief killed. Air operations are reduced to a minimum following this storm, and NAS Richmond is closed two months later.

• 1943 – First Avro 683 Lancaster X arrived in England after a transatlantic delivery flight.

• 1943 – A German guided bomb strikes another American Liberty ship off Salerno, and she becomes a total loss.

• 1943 – 15-16 – First use of the "Tall Boy" 12,000 lb (5,455 kg) bomb by RAF Lancasters.

• 1942 – The Japanese submarine I-19 torpedoes and sinks the U. S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7) southeast of the Solomon Islands.

• 1942 – German Luftwaffe ace Hans-Joachim Marseille shoots down seven British Curtiss Kittyhawk fighters on a single mission over North Africa. Among them is his 150th aerial victory.

• 1942 – The United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command establishes the 319th Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), a second organization of civilian women ferry pilots and rival of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) established five days earlier. Neither the WAFS nor the WFTD acknowledges the existence of the other.

• 1942 – Vultee XA-31B-VU Vengeance, 42-35824, piloted by H. H. Sargent Jr., out of Rentschler Field, Connecticut, overturns in a tobacco field while making forced landing near Windsor Locks, Connecticut, after engine failure.[149] Initially built as a non-flying XA-31A engine-test airframe but later upgraded for operation.

• 1941 – Miroslaw Hermaszewski, First Polish Cosmonaut in Space, is born.

• 1940 – Germany makes its heaviest daylight raid on London

• 1940 – First flight of the Miles M.20 U-9

• 1939 – Introduction: Bristol Bolingbroke

• 1939 – The Khalkhin Gol Incident concludes in a Soviet victory over the Imperial Japanese Army. In the final August 20-September 15 Soviet offensive, the Soviet Air Force claims the destruction of another 290 Japanese aircraft, bringing the total Soviet claim since the beginning of the Incident on May 11 to 645 Japanese planes destroyed. The Soviets claim to have lost only 34 aircraft in the last two months of the conflict.

• 1938 – The United States Army Air Corps officially activates Hickam Field in the Territory of Hawaii.

• 1938 – Air Training Command of the RCAF was formed, with headquarters at Toronto, Ontario.

• 1935 – A Seversky SEV-3 sets a world speed record for piston-engined amphibious airplanes, reaching 230.413 mph (370.814 km/hr). The record still stands.

• 1924 – A Curtiss N-9 seaplane, equipped with radio control and without a human pilot aboard, was flown on a 40-minute flight at the Naval Proving Grounds, Dahlgren, Virginia. Although the aircraft sank from damage sustained while landing, this test demonstrated the practicability of radio control of aircraft.

• 1923 – Major Edward L. Napier, a native of Union Springs, Alabama, is killed in the crash of a Fokker D.VII, AS-5382, at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, He had been a Medical Corps Officer in the Great War and had transferred to the Army Air Corps. He was receiving training as a flight surgeon at the time of his death. The official report states that he was piloting the plane himself and there was a structural failure of a wing. In 1941, the U.S. Army Air Corps will open Napier FieldatDothan, Alabama, named in his honor.

• 1916 – French submarine Foucault is sunk by two Austrian flying boats, becoming the first submarine to be sunk by an aircraft.

• 1911 – Édouard Nieuport, one of the pre-eminent aeroplane designers and racing pilots of the era, and co-founder with his brother Charles de Niéport of the French aircraft manufacturer Nieuport, is killed in a flying accident.

• 1904 – Wilbur Wright in the airplane Flyer II made his first controlled half-circle while in flight.

• 1784 – Italian diplomat, Vincenzo Lunardi, makes the first ascent in a hydrogen balloon in Britain.

References[edit]

September 16

• 2013 – First Flight of the Bombardier CSeries C-FBCSatMontréal-Mirabel International Airport, Montreal, Quebec.

• 2011 – 2011 Reno Air Races crash: The North American P-51D Mustang The Galloping Ghost, flown by James K. "Jimmy" Leeward, crashes into box seats in front of the grandstand at the Reno Air RacesatReno Stead Airport north of Reno, Nevada. Leeward and 10 others are killed and 69 people are injured. It is the third-deadliest airshow accident in U.S. history and the deadliest aviation accident of any kind in the United States in two years.

• 2011 – Libyan rebel forces take control of the airport at Sirte.^[1]

• 2008 – Deceased: John Fancy, 95, British World War II RAF airman.

• 2007 – One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 crashes on landing in Phuket International Airport after a failed go-around during extreme windshear conditions, breaking into two pieces on an embankment next to the runway. The crash of the MD-82 (registered HS-OMG) killed 90 of the 130 on board. Investigators blame the crash on pilot error, as the pilot decided to land even though the control tower warned them about the difficult time the previous aircraft had.

• 1996 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-79 at 4:54:49.048 am EDT. Mission highlights: Shuttle-Mir docking.

• 1980 – First flight of the AIDC AT-3.

• 1964 – First flight of the Mikoyan Ye-155-P1

• 1959 – A Convair YB-58A-10-CF Hustler, 58-1017, c/n 24, of the 43rd Bomb Wing, is totally destroyed by fire following an aborted take-off from Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas. The loss was directly attributed to tire failure, followed by disintegration of the wheel. Sturdier tires and new wheels will be retrofitted to the type to address this problem.

• 1958 – First flight of the North American Sabreliner (NA265-40)

• 1958 – A Boeing B-52D-20-BW Stratofortress, 55-065, c/n 464017, crashes in the August Kahl farmyard at Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, near St. Paul, after losing its tail section in flight. Only the co-pilot, Capt. Jack D. Craft, 29, of Sturgis, Massachusetts, survived of the eight crew. Air Force officials said that he was in shock and unable to answer questions. The jet tore a hole 300 feet long by 15 feet deep in the farmyard. The plane exploded as it hit, setting fire to the farm buildings. Eight members of the Kahl family were injured, and three remain hospitalized. They lost all their possessions in the explosion and fire.

• 1955 – Gloster Meteor aircraft of the Argentine Air Force attack the Argentine Navy destroyers Cervantes and La Rioja in the River Plate during the Revolución Libertadora against Juan Perón, inflicting numerous casualties.

• 1953 – American Airlines Flight 723, a Convair 240, crashes while on approach to Albany Airport, all 28 passengers and crew die.

• 1951 – A damaged McDonnell F2H-2 Banshee jet fighter, BuNo 124968, of VF-172, returning to the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Essex, on its first Korean War cruise, misses the recovery net and crashes into several planes parked on the ship's deck, killing seven people and destroying four aircraft. This crash led the USN to equip all future carriers with angled flight decks for safer airplane recovery.

• 1947 – A pilot assigned to Eglin Field, Florida, is KWF during an attempted emergency landing in a Lockheed P-80 at that base on Tuesday afternoon. Capt. Lawson L. Lipscomb of Houston, Texas, radioed that he was having difficulty with the jet and was returning to the Eglin main base where emergency preparations had been made on the runways, but the fighter came down just west of the airfield.

• 1946 – The Italian airline Alitalia is formed.

• 1943 – The British battleship HMS Warspite is badly damaged by two hits and two near misses by German guided bombs off Salerno. She is out of service until mid-1944.

• 1942 – (Overnight) 369 British bombers attack Germany, losing 39 of their number, a very high 10.6 percent loss rate. One German night fighter pilot, Hauptmann Reinhold Knacke, shoots down five bombers during the night.

• 1939 – Soviet ace (18 victories) of the Spanish Civil War, Sergey Gritsevets, assigned to act as an adviser in a fighter brigade at Orsha for the invasion of Poland on 17 September, is killed this date in a landing accident. At 1907 hrs., three Polikarpov I-16s took off for Bolbasovo. When they landed at 1950 hrs., Gritsevets was killed when Major Petr I. Khara’s (also a veteran from Spain) aircraft stalled whilst landing and crashing into Gritsevets, who was taxiing on the airfield at Bolbasovo. Khara survived the crash.

• 1936 – Tupolev TB-3-4AM-34FRN with A. B. Yumashev at the controls sets a payload-to-altitude record of 10,000 kg (22,046 lb) to 6,605 m (21,670 feet).

• 1932 – Cyril Uwins sets a new heavier-than-air altitude record of 43,976 ft (13,404 m) in a Vickers Vespa.

• 1916 – Two Imperial German Navy Zeppelins destroyed when L 6, LZ31, took fire during refilling of gas in its hangar at Fuhlsbüttel and burnt down together with L 9, LZ36.

• 1914 – The Canadian Aviation Corps was authorized by the (Colonel Sam Hughes), the Minister of Militia and Defense to be formed. This was the beginning of Canada’s military air force. It was composed of two officers and one mechanic.

• 1910 – Bessica Raiche makes the first solo airplane flight by a woman in the United States to be accredited at the time by the Aeronautical Society of America.

References[edit]

September 17

• 2013 – First Flight of the Boeing 787-9 N789ZB at Paine Field in Everett, Washington, United States. ^[1]

• 2009 – An Indonesian Air Force FFA AS-202 Bravo on a routine training flight crashes into a rice field in Sragen, Central Java killing the pilot.

• 2006 – In the 2006 Nigerian Air Force Dornier 228 crash, fifteen are killed, including many senior officers.

• 2001 – Grozny Mil Mi-8 crash in Chechnya killed 13 Russian military personnel, mostly senior military officers including two generals.

• 1997 – First flight of the Antonov An-140

• 1993 – The F/A-18 Hornet logs its 2 millionth flying hour – Achieved in only ten years of operations.

• 1987 – McDonnell-Douglas KC-10A Extender, 82-0190, c/n 48212, written off in ramp fire after explosion while undergoing maintenance at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, killing crew chief.

• 1984 – First flight of the Avtek 400 N400AV

• 1981 – Near Sardinia, Italy, a USMC Sikorsky CH-53C Sea Stallion helicopter crashes while attempting to land aboard the USS Guadalcanal during training exercises, killing all five crewmen.

• 1976 – The prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise, built by Rockwell International (North American), rolls out. Its 9-month approach and landing test program lasts from Jan. 31 to Oct. 26, 1977.

• 1974 – Entered Service: F-14 Tomcat with VF-1 and VF-2 aboard USS Enterprise

• 1965 – Pan Am Flight 292, a Boeing 707, crashes into Chances Peak, Montserrat in stormy weather; all 30 on board die.

• 1961 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes on takeoff from Chicago as a result of a maintenance error causing the aileron s to become detached from the control wheels; all 37 on board die.

• 1960 – East African Airways commences jet services between London and Nairobi

• 1959 – Introduction: North American X-15 (powered)

• 1956 – Sixth Lockheed U-2A, Article 346, 56-6679, delivered to the CIA on 13 January 1956, crashes during climb-out from Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany, when the aircraft of Detachment A, stalls at 35,000 feet (11,000 m), killing Agency pilot Howard Carey. Cause of accident never satisfactorily determined.

• 1956 – Boeing B-52B Stratofortress, 53-393, of the 93d Bomb Squadron, crashes near Madera, California after an in-flight fire. Five crew killed, two bailed out safely.

• 1947 – The United States Army Air Forces are separated from the United States Army and become an independent armed service, the United States Air Force.

• 1944 – No. 437 Squadron took part in the airborne landings at Eindhoven, Grave and Arnhem, in the Netherlands.

• 1944 – The U. S. Navy submarine USS Barb (SS-220) torpedoes and sinks the Japanese aircraft carrier Unyō in the South China Sea. There are over 761 survivors.

• 1940 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious raid Benghazi, Libya.

• 1939 – The German submarine U-29 torpedoes and sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous with the loss of 518 lives while Courageous is conducting an antisubmarine patrol in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Fleet Air Arm’s No. 811 and No. 822 Swordfish squadrons are completely destroyed in the sinking. The loss of Courageous results in the Royal Navy withdrawing aircraft carriers from antisubmarine operations.

• 1939 – Polish LWS-3 Mewa destroyed near Stanisławów in the SE Poland due to fuel shortage.

• 1937 – At a conference at Nyon, Switzerland, to address Italian attacks on merchant ships in the Mediterranean Sea attended by Bulgaria, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Turkey, delegates agree that a British and French naval patrol in the Mediterranean west of Malta previously authorized to sink submarines suspected of attacking merchant ships also will be authorized to attack aircraft suspected of engaging in anti-shipping strikes. The agreement is in response to Italian attacks on merchant ships by aircraft based at Majorca.

• 1935 – First flight of the Junkers Ju 87

• 1930 – Edgar Mitchell, American astronaut and the sixth man to walk on the Moon, was born.

• 1929 – First flight of the Adcox Student Prince

• 1917 – First flight of the Junkers D.I

• 1917 – A kite balloon from the USS Huntington was hit by a squall and while being hauled down struck the water so hard that the observer, Lieutenant (jg) Henry W. Hoyt, was knocked out of the basket and caught underwater in the balloon rigging. As the balloon was pulled toward the ship, Patrick McGunigal, Ships Fitter First Class, jumped overboard, cleared the tangle and put a line around Lieutenant Hoyt so that he could be hauled up on deck. For this act of heroism, McGunigal was later awarded the Medal of Honor.

• 1916 – Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen scores his first kill, from an Albatros D.II

• 1911 – Lieutenant Reginald Archibald Cammell of the British Air Battalion was killed conducting a trial flight of an ASL Valkyrie monoplane Type B with his own engine fitted. The accident was not considered to be due to faults in the aircraft, but to have been caused by Cammell's lack of experience with the aircraft.

• 1908 – Army Signal Corps Wright Model A, Army Signal Corps serial number 1, piloted by Orville Wright, crashes at Ft. Myer, Virginia, killing Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge. In flight that begins just after 0700 hrs., a propeller breaks and severs control wires. Rebuilt. Retired 4 May 1911, and now in Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C., accepted on 20 October 1911. Selfridge AFB, Michigan, was later named for the first U.S. military air crash victim. Wright is also hospitalized until 31 October and spends several more weeks on crutches.

References[edit]

September 18

• 2009 – N349 TA, a Casa 212 Aviocar 200 operated by Bering Air, departs the runway at Savoonga, Alaska, and is substantially damaged when the undercarriage collapses.

• 2008 – A CH-47 Chinook en route to Balad from Kuwait crashes 62 miles (100 km) west of Basrah International Airport, killing seven U.S. soldiers.^[1][2][3][4]

• 2003 – A Tupolev Tu-160, bort number '01', of the 121st regiment, 22 heavy bombers division, on a proving flight out of Engels Air Base after the replacement of one of its four engines, crashes near Stepnoye settlement, Sovetskoye, Saratov oblast, killing the four crew. There were no armaments aboard. Just before the crash the crew reported an engine fire to ground control, after which contact with the pilots was lost. The wreckage of the bomber was found 35 km from its base. No injuries on the ground. The main staff of the air force identified the dead as crew commander, Lt. Col. Yuriy Deyneko, co-pilot Maj. Oleg Fedusenko [the Russian TV channel gave this name as Fedunenko in its 1000 GMT newscast], and the navigators as Maj. Grigoriy Kolchin and Maj. Sergey Sukhorukov. This was the first Blackjack loss in 17 years of operations.

• 2002 – GE90-115 B, world’s most powerful jet engine

• 1984 – Joe Kittinger completes first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic.

• 1977 – The “Voyager I” spacecraft snapped the first photograph showing the earth and moon together.

• 1976 – The legendary test pilot Albert Boyd dies.

• 1968 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-20

• 1962 – By order of the United States Defense Department, the United States Armed Forces begin use of a unified designation system, the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system, for their aircraft. The biggest change is that the Department of the Navy’s designation system employed by the U. S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard is abandoned, with all aircraft brought under the system employed by the U. S. Air Force and U. S. Army.

• 1962 – U. S. Marine Corps helicopters fly a combat mission from Da Nang, South Vietnam, for the first time, airlifting South Vietnamese troops into the hills south of Da Nang.

• 1961 – U. N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in a plane crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the war-torn Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• 1959 – Introduction: Douglas DC-8 with Delta Air Lines and United Air Lines.

• 1955 – Argentine Naval Aviation aircraft attack an Argentine Army column during the Revolución Libertadora against Juan Perón, halting the column before it can capture a naval air base.

• 1948 – A RAF de Havilland Mosquito crashes during an air show at RAF Manston, killing both crew and ten members of the public.

• 1947 – The United States Air Force becomes its own fully independent military command.

• 1947 – W. Stuart Symington becomes the first United States Secretary of the Air Force.

• 1945 – A USAAF Lockheed C-69 Constellation, 42-94551, [73] belly lands at Topeka Army Air Field, Kansas, after suffering engine problems.

• 1944 – Second Folland Fo.108, P1775, 'P', one of only twelve built by newly founded Folland company, as dedicated engine-testbed type, specification 43/37, crashes this date. Of the twelve, five were lost in accidents, including three in a 21 day period in August and September 1944, giving rise to the nickname, the Folland "Frightener".

• 1944 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Victorious strike targets on Sumatra.

• 1943 – (18-19) U. S. Navy aircraft from the carriers USS Lexington (CV-16), USS Princeton (CVL-23), and USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) make seven strikes against Tarawa Atoll, destroying nine Japanese aircraft on the ground, sinking a merchant ship in the lagoon, and leaving facilities on the atoll ablaze and many Japanese dead. They also photograph potential landing beaches on the island of Betio. Four American aircraft are lost.

• 1941 – First flight of the Curtiss XP-60

• 1939 – RCAF Manning Pool (later No. 1 Manning Depot) was formed at Toronto, Ontario.

• 1930 – Ruth Alexander died when her NB-3 Barling struck a hillside shortly after takeoff on 1930 from Lindbergh Field, San Diego on a scheduled cross-country flight to New York City via Wichita, Kansas. She was eulogized as a “pioneer of the airways of this epic age. ”

• 1928 – Don Juan de la Cierva flies a Cierva C.8 autogiro from Croydon, England, to Le Bourget, France, making the first crossing of the English Channel in a rotorcraft.

• 1928 – The first flight of the Zeppelin LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin is made. It is the most successful rigid airship ever built, flown commercially on a regular basis from Europe to South America. It flies over a million miles and carries some 13,100 passengers before its demise 1940.

• 1919 – Over Curtiss Field, Long Island, a U. S. Navy Curtiss 18-T-1 triplane piloted by Roland Rholfs, a Curtiss test pilot, sets a world altitude record recognized by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Altitude as 31,420 feet, [FAI Record File Number 15676] although contemporary reports claimed a higher altitude of 34,910 feet (10,640 m), which would have made him the first person to reach 35,000 feet in an open cockpit. Oxygen was provided in a bottle connected to a tube that Rohls sucked on at altitude.

• 1913 – First flight of the Avro 504.

References[edit]

September 19

• 2009 – Maltese airline Efly commences operations.

• 2009 – A United States Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk crashed at Joint Base Balad, (formerly Al-Bakr Air Base), Balad, Iraq. The accident occurred during a storm including high winds and a sandstorm resulting in 12 crew injured and 1 fatality.

• 2008 – A Learjet 60 crashed near West Columbia, South Carolina. Travis Barker and DJ AM survived while four others died.

• 1995 – Kish Air hijacking was the hijacking of an Iranian plane by a flight attendant Reza Jabari. Flying from Tehran to the Iranian resort Kish Island, Kish Air Flight 707 was hijacked by Reza Jabari, a flight attendant. The jet had 174 passengers on board. The hijacker tried to divert the aircraft to Europe, but there was not enough fuel. Instead, the plane landed in Israel after Jordan and Saudi Arabia refused its request to land. The plane was directed to the Ovda military air base near Eilat. The passengers were flown home 24 hours later.

• 1989 – UTA Flight 772, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, explodes in mid-air over the Sahara desert when a bomb hidden in its forward cargo hold detonates. All 170 people on board are killed. Responsibility for the bombing is later traced back to Abdullah Sanussi, the brother-in-law of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, whose government in 2003 agrees to pay compensation to the victims.

• 1988 – Israel launches its first satellite, the Ofeq-1 from Palmachim Airbase in Israel for secret military reconnaissance.

• 1980 – While performing routine maintenance in a LGM-25C Titan II silo at Damascus, Arkansas, a repairman dropped a heavy socket wrench, which rolled off of a work platform, bounced, and struck the missile, 62-0006, holing a pressurized fuel tank. The launch complex was evacuated and a specialist team called in from Little Rock Air Force Base. Approximately 8½ hours after the initial puncture, fuel vapours exploded, fatally injuring one team member and injuring 21 others. The missile re-entry vehicle, which contained a nuclear warhead, was recovered intact. There was no radioactive contamination.

• 1976 – Turkish Airlines Flight 452, a Boeing 727, crashes into a hillside near Karatepe, Turkey, while on approach to Antalya Airport; all 154 passengers and crew die.

• 1973 – A U.S. Navy Grumman A-6A Intruder, BuNo 155721, 'NJ', of VA-128, out of NAS Whidbey Island, Washington, crashes in the Oregon desert, ~25 miles SE of Christmas Valley, Oregon, during a low level night training mission. The pilot Lt. Alan G. Koehler, 27, and navigator Lt. Cdr. Philip D. duHamel, 33, are KWF. On 14 June 2007, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officially declares the crash scene a historic Federal government site at a Flag Day ceremony. An interpretive plaques was unveiled during this event reflecting this designation and depicting the historical significance of the location.

• 1969 – First flight of the Mil Mi-24, the most widely exported helicopter gunship ,flown by Mil test pilot German Alferov .

• 1968 – A U. S. Navy F-8 C Crusader fighter of Fighter Squadron 111 (VF-111) shoots down a North Vietnamese MiG fighter. It is believed to be the last American air-to-air victory in the Vietnam War until March 1970.

• 1966 – Using UH-1Bs borrowed from the U. S. Army, the U. S. Navy’s first attack helicopter unit begins operations, supporting U. S. Navy riverine forces operating in South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.

• 1962 – First flight of the Aero Spacelines Pregnant Guppy

• 1958 – The first Thor Ballistic Missile (IRBM) was handed over to No. 77 Sqn, Bomber Command at RAF Feltwell. The first RAF-controlled launch of Thor took place at Vandenberg Air Base, USA, on 16 April 1959.

• 1958 – Lockheed C-130A Hercules 56-0526, c/n 3134, of the 314th Troop Carrier Wing, has a mid-air collision with a French Armée de l'Air Dassault Super Mystère over France.

• 1949 – First flight of the Fairey Gannet

• 1946 – The Portuguese airline Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (TAP) began commercial services with an inaugural flight from Lisbon to Madrid using a Douglas DC-3.

• 1944 – Consolidated B-32-1-CF Dominator, 42-108472, first B-32 delivered, on this date, written off the very same day when nosewheel collapsed on landing.

• 1944 – RAF Douglas Dakota Mk. III, KG374, c/n 12383, (ex-USAAF C-47A-DK, 42-92568), 'YS-DM', of 271 Squadron, RAF Down Ampney, Gloucester, piloted by F/Lt. David S. Lord, is hit by AAA in starboard engine while on resupply mission for beleaguered troops at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden. Despite fire spreading to whole of starboard wing, pilot spends ten minutes making two passes over very small dropzone (which, unbeknownst to the crew, had been overrun by German forces) to drop eight ammunition panniers. Just after last one has been dropped, fuel tank explodes, tearing off wing, only navigator F/O Harry A. King escaping from stricken aircraft and descending by parachute to be captured as a POW the following morning, spending the rest of the war in Stalag Luft I at Barth. KWF are pilot Lord, second pilot P/O R. E. H. "Dickie" Medhurst (son of Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Medhurst), wireless operator F/O Alec F. Ballantyne, and four air despatchers of 223 Company RASC, Cpl. P. Nixon, Dvr. A. Rowbotham, Dvr. J. Ricketts and Dvr. L. Harper. Following release of King from prison camp, full details of the action become known and pilot Lord receives posthumous Victoria Cross on 13 November 1945, the only VC awarded to any member of Transport Command during the Second World War. In May 1949 the Dutch Government awards Harry King the Netherlands Bronze Cross.

• 1943 – F/L RF Fisher and crew in a Consolidated Liberator of No. 10 Squadron sank the German submarine U-341 in the North Atlantic.

• 1939 – Germany halts construction of its second Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier, Flugzeugträger B, while she still is on the building ways. Work on the ship never will be resumed.

• 1937 – (19-22) Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A5 M (“Claude”) fighters conduct a successful campaign to eliminate Chinese air resistance over Nanking.

• 1937 – Junkers EF 61 V1, first prototype of pressurized bomber, suffered control surface flutter, crashed at Dessau, Germany, killing both crew.

• 1921 – The first regular scheduled airline service in Latin America commences, with Colombian airline SCADTA operating float-equipped Junkers F.13s between Barranquilla and Girandot.

• 1919 – CMA (Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes) commences a regular service between Paris and London, using ex-military Breguet 14 s.

• 1918 – First flight of the Sopwith Buffalo

• 1907 – The first piloted helicopter flight takes place, reaching an impressive altitude of two feet above Douai, France while being steadied by several men.

• 1902 – The Wright Brothers begin testing their third glideratKitty Hawk, North Carolina.

• 1784 The brothers Robert and Colin Hullin take a balloon ride over 186 km from Paris to Beuvry.

• 1783, The Montgolfiers launch a sheep, duck, and rooster in a hot-air balloon in a demonstration for King Louis XVI of France. The balloon rises some 500 m (1,700 ft) and returns the animals unharmed to the ground.

References[edit]

September 20

• 2012 – At least 71 people die in Raqqa, Syria, when a Syrian Air Force plane bombs a gasoline (petrol) station.^[1]

• 2012 – After takeoff from Damascus International AirportinDamascus, Syria, a Syrian Air Airbus A320 collides in mid-air with a Syrian Mil Mi-17 (NATO reporting name "Hip") helicopter. The helicopter crashes, while the A320 returns to the airport safely despite a damaged tail.^[2]

• 2009 – One U.S. service member was killed and 12 others are injured when a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter goes down inside of Joint Base Balad.^[3]

• 1999 – A Swedish Air Force Saab JAS-39 Gripen, 39156, '56', of F7 Wing, 2nd Sqn., crashes into Lake Vänern at about 1430 hrs. during an air-to-air combat exercise. Aircraft sank in about 260 feet of water (80 m). Pilot ejected safely and was recovered by Hkp 10 SAR helicopter. The accident was caused by a design flaw in the plane's control system, rendering it in a stalled mode after passing another plane's vortex. This was the first loss of a Gripen since the type became operational.

• 1995 – Just after making a supersonic pass close by the starboard side of the USS John Paul Jones, Grumman F-14A-110-GR Tomcat, BuNo 161146, 'NH 112', of VF-213 from the USS Abraham Lincoln, explodes in flight from catastrophic compressor failure, both crew ejecting, suffering burns to the upper body. Crew recovered. Plane goes down in the Central Pacific, ~800 miles W of Guam, and 55 miles from the carrier. Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qMtnFtB38I

• 1993 – Erich Alfred “Bubi” Hartmann, German pilot died (b. 1922) Nicknamed “The Blond Knight Of Germany” by friends and “The Black Devil” by his enemies, Hartmann is the most successful fighter ace in the history of aerial combat. He scored 352 aerial victories (of which 345 were flown by the Soviet Air Force, and 260 of which were fighters) 1,404 combat missions and engaging in aerial combat 825 times while serving with the Luftwaffe in World War II.

• 1989 – A USAir Boeing 737 aborts a takeoff in New York and slides into the East River. Two people are killed.

• 1989 – USAir Flight 5050, a Boeing 737, overruns the runway after a tire on a nosewheel bursts; two passengers die.

• 1973 – Musicians Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen are killed in a Beechcraft E18S due to fly from Natchitoches, LouisianatoSherman, Texas. The plane collides with a tree at the end of the runway of Natchitoches Regional Airport.

• 1971 – First flight of the VFW VAK 191B

• 1969 – An Air Vietnam Douglas C-54D-10-DC Skymaster), XV-NUG, c/n 10860, collided on approach to landing with an American USAF McDonnell F-4 Phantom II near Da Nang, Vietnam. 77 died.

• 1965 – A UH-2 Seasprite makes the U. S. Navy’s first helicopter rescue of a pilot downed in North Vietnam.

• 1958 – A Rolls-Royce test pilot, Mr. K.R. Sturt, flying the prototype Avro Vulcan VX770 in an airshow at RAF Syerston pulls up too hard after a high-speed flyby and exceeds the airframe's structural limits, collapsing the plane's right wing. The craft spirals out of control and crashes, killing the entire aircrew and 3 people on the ground. VX770 was known to have had a weaker wing structure then production aircraft. The aircraft had been testing the Rolls-Royce Conway installation and was returning from a test flight via-Syerston.

• 1955 – First flight of the Nord 1500 Griffon (Griffon I)

• 1951 – First flight of the Grumman F-9 Cougar.

• 1948 – First prototype USAF North American XB-45 Tornado, 45-59479, in a dive test at Muroc Air Force Base, California, to test design load factor, suffers engine explosion, tearing off cowling panels that shear several feet from the horizontal stabilizer, aircraft pitches up, and both wings tear off under negative g load. Crew has no ejection seats, and George Krebs and Nick Piccard are killed.

• 1946 – First flight of the Martin P4M Mercator

• 1945 – An experimental Gloster Meteor with Rolls-Royce Trent engines makes the first turboprop-powered flight.

• 1943 – First flight of the de Havilland Vampire prototype LZ548

• 1943 – (overnight) To disrupt the German evacuation of Corsica, Allied Northwest African Air Force Wellington, Mitchell, and Liberator bombers begin strikes against airfields, shipping, and port facilities at Bastia, Corsica, and Leghorn and Pisa, Italy.

• 1939 – Sgt F Letchard a gunner of the RAF 88, in a Fairey Battle, claimed the first RAF victory of the war after he shot down a German Bf 109 during a patrol near Aachen.

• 1936 – Tupolev TB-3-4AM-34FRN with A. B. Yumashev at the controls set a payload-to-altitude record of 12,000 kg (26,455 lb) to 2,700 m (8,858 feet).

• 1933 – First flight of the Boeing P-29 (Boeing Model 264)

• 1929 – Western Canada Airways pilot ?Punch? Dickins began operations to locate and bring out the missing MacAlpine Survey. The group was ultimately successfully rescued and all members of the expedition and the crews of the rescue aircraft were brought out safely.

• 1928 – First prototype Parnall Pipit, N232, suffers structural failure of port tailplane in flight, crash lands at Martlesham Heath, Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) test pilot Sqn. Ldr. Jack Noakes (AFC, MM) survives, despite suffering broken neck when thrown from the somersaulting airframe.

• 1922 – First flight over 200 mph (322 km/h) made by Sadi Lecointe in a Nieuport-Delage NiD 29.

• 1920 – Schneider Trophy race flown at Venice, Italy. Lt. Luigi Bolgna in a Savoia S.12 is the only starter. Speed 172.6 km/h (107.3 mph).

• 1904 – Wilbur Wright makes the first circuit flight, in the Flyer II

• 1902 – The Wright brothers make the first of nearly 1,000 glides on their modified No. 3 glider in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. It is this glider, made of spruce wood and cloth, which incorporates for the first time the flight controls of the modern airplane.

• 1874 – Du Temple builds a steam-powered monoplane which achieves a short hop after gaining speed by rolling down a ramp. It carries a human passenger whose identity is no longer known.

References[edit]

September 21

• 2012 – A Syrian Air Force jet reportedly is shot down by rebel forces over Atarib, Syria.^[1]

• 2012 – A Space Shuttle is airborne for the last time as a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft completes a three-day journey to transport the retired Space Shuttle Endeavour from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to Los Angeles, California. After two days of delays due to bad weather, the aircraft had departed Cape Canaveral on 19 September and made low passes over Florida'sSpace Coast and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) centers in Mississippi and Louisiana before spending the night at Ellington FieldinHouston, Texas; proceeded on 20 September to El Paso, Texas, for a refueling stop before flying over the White Sands Test FacilityinNew Mexico and over Tucson, Arizona, in tribute to retired Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, ending the day with an overnight stop at Edwards Air Force Base in California; and on 21 September had completed the final leg of the journey by making low-level passes over Sacramento, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles, California, before landing at Los Angeles International Airport.^[2]

• 2005 – JetBlue Airways Flight 292, an Airbus A320, makes an emergency landing in Los Angeles, California because of landing gear steering failure. There are no injuries to the 139 passengers and six crew members.

• 2004 – UH-60A Black Hawk 87-24579 from A Company, 1–244th Aviation Regiment crashes near Nasiriyah, wounding four crew members.^[3]

• 2002 – Air Canada Douglas DC-9 makes final flight to place of honour at the Canada Aviation Museum

• 1994 – Introduction: Hongdu JL-8

• 1993 – In the first of the three Transair Georgia airliner shootdowns, a Tupolev Tu-134A is hit on approach to Sukhumi-Babusheri Airport by a surface-to-air missile; the plane crashes into the Black Sea, killing all five crew members and all 22 passengers.

• 1984 – First flight of the Dassault Falcon 900

• 1979 – Two RAF Hawker Siddeley Harrier jump-jets from RAF Wittering collide over the UK. Both pilots ejected safely. One of the jets broke up in midair and fell harmlessly into a field but the other dropped onto the center of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, destroying two houses and a bungalow. Several people were injured in the accident and three people were killed.

• 1969 – The Mexicana Boeing 727-64 XA-SEJ strikes the ground short of the runway on final approach to Mexico City International Airport in Mexico City, Mexico, becomes airborne again, then crashes on a railway embankment, killing 27 of the 118 people on board.

• 1967 – Hawker Siddeley Kestrel, XS693, fitted with 19,000-lb. thrust Bristol-Siddeley Pegasus 6 engine, crashes during trials at Filton, Sqn. Ldr. H. Rigg escaping safely.

• 1964 – First flight of the North American XB-70 Valkyrie, the world’s first Mach 3 bomber in Palmdale, California.

• 1964 – During delivery flight of North American XB-70A-1-NA Valkyrie, 62-0001, from Palmdale, California to Edwards AFB, California, on touchdown the brakes on the main gear lock up and the friction causes the eight tires and wheels to burn. The Valkyrie was otherwise undamaged.

• 1961 – First flight of the Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter

• 1956 – Grumman company test pilot Tom Attridge shoots himself down in a Grumman F11F Tiger, BuNo 138260, during a Mach 1.0 20 degree dive from 22,000 feet (6,700 m) to 7,000 feet (2,100 m). He fires two bursts from the fighter's 20 mm cannon during the descent and as he reaches 7,000 feet (2,100 m) the jet is struck multiple times, including one shell that is ingested by the engine, shredding the compressor blades. He limps the airframe back towards the Grumman airfield but comes down at almost the same spot where the first prototype impacted on 19 October: 1954. Pilot gets clear before jet burns, suffers only minor injuries – investigation shows that he had overtaken and passed through his own gunfire.

• 1953 – North Korean pilot No Kum-Sok defects, bringing his MiG-15 with him to Seoul and collecting a $US 100,000 reward.

• 1951 – The US Marine Corps makes the world's first mass combat deployment by helicopter. 228 Marines are landed in 12 Sikorsky HRSs.

• 1943 – (Overnight) A Northwest African Air Force raid on Bastia damages the port enough to slow the German evacuation of Corsica.

• 1942 – First flight of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress

• 1942 – Convoy PQ 18 arrives at Archangel in the Soviet Union. During its voyage, aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Avenger have attacked 16 German submarines and contributed to the sinking of one, and Avenger’s fighters and the convoy’s antiarcraft guns have shot down 41 German aircraft. Because of these high losses, German aircraft rarely attack Arctic convoys again.

• 1939 – First flight of the Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar

• 1938 – Major General Oscar Westover, Chief of the U. S. Army Air Corps, is killed at Burbank, California, in the crash of a Northrop A-17AS he is piloting.

• 1938 – USAAC Chief Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover is killed in crash of Northrop A-17AS, 36-349, c/n 289, '1', out of Bolling Field, Washington, D.C., in a crosswind short of the runway at Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, California, now known as Bob Hope Airport. The single-engined attack design used as a high-speed staff transport, crashed into a house at 1007 Scott Road in Burbank. Also KWF is his mechanic S/Sgt Samuel Hymes. Northeast Air Base, Massachusetts, renamed Westover Field on 1 December 1939, later Westover AFB on 13 January 1948.

• 1916 – One only prototype Avro 521 fighter, 1811, (a serial that duplicated one assigned to a Bleriot monoplane), assigned to Central Flying School Upavon, crashes killing pilot Lt. W. H. S. Garnett.

• 1913 – The first aerobatic maneuver, a sustained inverted flight, is performed in France.

• 1802 – Frenchman Andre-Jacques Garnerin makes the first parachute descent in England, jumping from a balloon over London.

References[edit]

September 22

• 2012 – A Ukrainian Air Force Aero L-39 crashed after an engine fire on take-off from Chuguyiv airfield, pilot killed.

• 2009 – An Iranian Air Force Ilyushin Il-76MD AWACS equipped aircraft collided with another Iranian Airforce Northrop F-5E Tiger II during a military parade near Varamin, Iran resulting in 7 fatalities.

• 2006 – Introduction: Boeing EA-18G Growler airborne electronic attack aircraft to the U. S. Navy test site at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.

• 2006 – Retired: Grumman F-14 Tomcat

• 2003 – David Hempleman-Adams becomes the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an open-air, wicker-basket hot air balloon from New Brunswick, Canada to Ireland.

• 1995 – A USAF Boeing E-3B Sentry, 77-0354, c/n 21554, of the 962d AACS, 552d ACW, crashes shortly after take off from Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, when a flock of Canadian snow geese were ingested by its engines. All 24 crew members die, including 2 Canadian air crew members. This was the first loss of an E-3 since the type entered service in 1977.

• 1994 – Two RAF SEPECAT Jaguars and a USAF A-10 attack and destroy a Serbian T-55 tank

• 1993 – In the second of the three Transair Georgia airliner shootdowns, a Tupolev Tu-154, carrying soldiers from Tbilisi, is shot down on landing in the Sukhumi-Babusheri Airport; the plane crashes on the runway and catches fire, killing 108 of the 132 people on board.

• 1987 – A U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A-70-GR Tomcat, BuNo 162707, of VF-74 out of NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, operating from the USS Saratoga, accidentally shoots down a USAF RF-4C-22-MC Phantom II, 69-0381, 'ZR' tailcode, of the 26th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, out of Zweibrücken Air Base, West Germany, at 1550 hrs. EDT over the Mediterranean during a NATO exercise, DISPLAY DETERMINATION. Both RF-4C crew eject, pilot Capt. Michael Ross of Portsmouth, Ohio, and WSO Lt. Randy Sprouse of Sumter, South Carolina, both of the 38th TRS, and are rescued by a helicopter from the Saratoga within 30 minutes, suffering numerous injuries. A Navy spokesman said that the F-14 downed the RF-4C with an air-to-air missile, but did not know whether it was a Phoenix, a Sparrow or a Sidewinder. This was likely due to insufficient information being relayed to the spokesman; recovery of the F-14 aboard Saratoga makes it obvious the missile was an AIM-9 Sidewinder. When told by the Saratoga's Admiral that they had been shot down, Sprouse remarks "I thought we were supposed to be on the same side?" to which the Admiral replies "We're sorry about this, but most of the time we are." The Tomcat pilot is duly disciplined and permanently removed from flying status.

• 1980 – Iraq attacks Iran, various military bases and oil wells affected.

• 1978 – A U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3B-75-LO Orion, BuNo 152757, c/n 185-5199, of VP-8 on flight out of Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine, at 1205 hrs. en route to Trenton, Ontario for display at an air show, explodes in the air eight-ten minutes later and comes down over Poland, Maine. Cause is thought to be failure of number one (port outer) engine nacelle due to "whirl-mode" in turbulence; engine separates along with 11 feet of outer port wing, strikes and shears off the port horizontal stabilizer. Aerodynamic forces then cause loss of other three engines, starboard wing fails at fuselage, which rolls inverted and impacts ground. Much of the debris comes down near the intersection of Route 11 and Megquier Hill Road, but pieces are scattered in a wide area around the site. No homes are hit, but the nearest residences to the wreckage are only a few hundred feet away. The blast blows out some of the windows in a nearby house. The eight crew are KWF: Lt. Commander Francis W. Dupont, Jr., Lt. j.g. Donald E. Merz, Aide-de-camp Larry R. Miller, Lt. j.g. George D. Nuttelman, Aviation ASW Operator 3rd Class Robert I. Phillips, Aviation ASW Operator 3rd Class James A. Piepkorn, Aviation ASW Operator Striker Paul.G. Schulz, and Lt. j.g. Ernest A. Smith.

• 1976 – Two CF-5 s carried out reece of Soviet ice island NP-22 in Canadian Arctic territory.

• 1974 – Introduction: Grumman F-14 Tomcat

• 1972 – The 1,000th Boeing 727 is sold, a sales record for airliners

• 1967 – North American Aviation and the Rockwell-Standard Corporation merge to form the North American Rockwell Corporation.

• 1966 – The Surveyor 2 crashes on Moon due to a mid-course correction failure.

• 1966 – Ansett-ANA Flight 149, a Vickers Viscount, crashes in Australia, killing all 24 people on board.

• 1965 – Sikorsky HSS-1N Seabat, BuNo 147631, c/n 58-1145, coded '141', ex-'H-5', exx-'B-5', of the Koninklijke Marine, crashes into the ocean off of Scotland.

• 1963 – MATS Douglas C-133A-15-DL Cargomaster, 56-2002, c/n 45167, of the 1607th Air Transport Wing, with ten personnel of the 1st Air Transport Squadron on board, is lost in the Atlantic Ocean on a flight from Dover AFB, Delaware to the Azores when contact is lost some 57 minutes after a 0233 EDT take-off from Dover. Last reported position was ~30 miles off of Cape May, New Jersey.

• 1954 – A USAF North American EF-86D-5-NA Sabre, 50-516, crashes and burns on take-off from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida killing the pilot. After briefly becoming airborne, it settled back onto the runway's end, continues off the overrun area and comes to rest in a marshy stream bed ~1,000 feet (300 m) to the north.

• 1950 – Col David Schilling makes the first crossing of the Atlantic in a jet fighter, a F-84 Thunderjet.

• 1949 – First flight of the Convair T-29.

• 1947 – First (of four) Saab J 21R jet conversions from Saab J 21A-1, 21119, first flown 10 March 1947 after modification, is destroyed this date in a mid-air explosion.

• 1945 – On first day of planned two-day exhibition of captured German aircraft at Freeman Field, Indiana, pilot Lt. William V. Haynes, 20, completes his flying routine in one of the eight remaining Focke Wulf Fw 190s at the base, (this being the same Fw 190D-9, Werke Nummer 211016, coded FE-119, that he had ferried from Newark, New Jersey to Freeman on 13 September), when, as he prepares to land, at ~300 feet AGL, the aircraft pitches up and rolls over, bellying into the ground nose up. Aircraft destroyed, pilot killed. Although investigation cites "pilot error" (it was thought he may have attempted a wing-over at too low an altitude for recovery), this may well have been another example of the faulty electrical horizontal trim switch problem that caused the loss of the Fw 190 at Hollidaysburg Airport, Pennsylvania on 12 September. Recent excavations at the former Freeman Field have uncovered various aircraft components that were apparently buried to dispose of them when the base was being shut down in 1947–1948.

• 1943 – Allied forces land at Finschhafen, New Guinea. A raid by 41 Rabaul-based Japanese aircraft inflicts no damage on the Allied ships involved, demonstrating that Allied fears that their ships could not operate survivably in the Solomon Sea and Bismarck Sea are no longer warranted.

• 1943 – 22-24 – Ernst Jachmann flies his single-seat glider 55 hrs and 51 min in a thermal.

• 1940 – First flight of the Heinkel He 280

• 1938 – First flight of the Curtiss-Wright CW-21.

• 1938 – RAF de Havilland DH. 93 Don, L2391, of the A&AEE, crashes while landing at RAF Martlesham Heath. An overheating engine cuts out on approach and aircraft undershoots, demolishing airframe. L2391, which had first flown on 13 June 1938, suffers a collapsed undercarriage and detached engine, but no crew aboard is seriously injured. This is the only write off of the 50 built. The Don will not last long in service, being replaced by the versatile Avro Anson.

• 1934 – Sir Alan Cobham sets out in an Airspeed Courier in a failed attempt to fly non-stop from England to India

• 1917 – A Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H-12 flying boat piloted by Flight Sub-Lieutenant N. Magor sinks the German submarine UB-32 in the North Sea. It is only time an aircraft sinks a German submarine during World War I.

• 1914 – In the first British air raid against Germany in history, Royal Naval Air Service BE.2 aircraft of No. 3 Squadron based at Antwerp, Belgium, attack German airship hangars at Cologne and Düsseldorf, Germany, but fail to inflict damage due to bad weather and the failure of bombs to explode.

• 1902 – Stanley Spencer becomes the first Englishman to fly in a powered airship over England. The 75-foot-long dirigible is powered by a 3-hp water-cooled engine and makes a flight of 30 miles.

References[edit]

September 23

• 2004 – AH-64D Apache 02-5292 from B Company, 1–227th Aviation Regiment, 4th BCT, 1st Cavalry Division crashes near Tallil AB, Iraq when pilot loses control following tail rotor problem.

• 1999 – NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter after it descended to a low altitude in Mars’ orbit and was destroyed by atmospheric stresses.

• 1999 – Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm. While some passengers only received minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas‘s history to date.

• 1997 – Static test Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet airframe, ST56, being barricade tested at NAES Lakehurst, New Jersey by being powered down a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) track by a Pratt & Whitney J57-powered jet car, flips over and crashes into nearby woods when the steel cable linking the barrier with underground hydraulic engines fails.

• 1983 – Gulf Air Flight 771, a Boeing 737, crashes near Mina Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates after a bomb planted by the Abu Nidal Organization detonates on board; all 112 people on board perish.

• 1968 – General Dynamics F-111A, 66-0040, c/n A1-58, crashes and is destroyed this date due to control system failure, at Nellis AFB, Nevada. Crew ejected safely.

• 1961 – The 1961 Turkish Airlines Ankara crash: a Turkish Airlines-operated Fokker F27 Friendship crashes while on approach to Esenboğa Airport; 28 of the 29 passengers and crew on board perish in the crash.

• 1959 – The USAF officially cancels the North American Aviation XF-108 Rapier.

• 1941 – Formation of University Training Squadrons was approved.

• 1941 – Hans-Ulrich Rudel single-handedly sinks a Soviet battleship (the Marat) flying a Junkers Ju 87

• 1940 – The British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal arrives off Dakar, Senegal, with the Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle embarked. She flies off two French Caudron C.270 Luciole trainer aircraft which carry Free French officers ashore to request that Vichy French forces there join de Gaulle on the Allied side, but the Vichy French refuse.

• 1938 – First flight of the Supermarine Sea Otter. (Some sources say 29 Sep).

• 1931 – A Pitcairn XOP-1 autogyro conducts landing and take-off trials aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Langley (CV-1). It is the U. S. Navy’s first experiment with a shipborne rotary-wing aircraft.

• 1925 – The U.S. Navy flies 23 Curtiss CS-1 floatplanes to Bay Shore Park on the Chesapeake Bay, 14 miles SE of Baltimore, Maryland, on a Friday with intention of an airshow demonstration before the 1925 Schneider Cup Race on Saturday, but that night gale force winds break three-inch mooring and anchor ropes on 17 of the biplanes and they are blown onto shore or dashed against seawalls, destroying seven and damaging ten. The next afternoon's Baltimore Evening Sun runs headline "Plane Disaster in Harbor Called Hard Blow to Navy" and quotes the ever-outspoken General William "Billy" Mitchell calling the loss of the CS-1s "staggering", and blaming it on Navy mismanagement of its aviation program.

• 1923 – 1st Lts. Robert Stanford Olmsted and John W. Shoptaw enter U.S. Army balloon S-6 in international balloon race from Brussels, despite threatening weather which causes some competitors to drop out. S-6 collides with Belgian balloon, Ville de Bruxelles on launch, tearing that craft's netting and knocking it out of the race. Lightning strikes S-6 over Nistelrode, the Netherlands, killing Olmsted outright, and Shoptaw in the fall. Switzerland's Génève is also hit, burns, killing two on board, as is Spain's Polar, killing one crew immediately, second crewman jumps from 100 feet (30 m), breaking both legs. Three other balloons are also forced down.Middletown Air Depot, Pennsylvania, was renamed Olmsted AFB on 11 March 1948.

• 1922 – A Martin NBS-1 bomber, Air Service 68487, Raymond E. Davis, pilot, nose dived and crashed from an estimated altitude of 500 feet (150 m) on a residential street near Mitchel Field, Mineola, New York, killing the six military personnel on board. At the time, the plane was involved in a night time war game display that was lit by searchlights and watched by an estimated crowd of 25,000 spectators.

• 1917 – During an epic 10-minute dogfight against six Royal Flying Corps SE.5s of No. 56 Squadron, the German ace Werner Voss, flying a Fokker Dr.I triplane, is shot down and killed by the British ace Arthur Rhys-Davids north of Frezenberg, Belgium. At the time of his death, Voss has 48 victories and is the second-leading German ace behind Manfred von Richthofen.

• 1916 – 23-24 – By some counts as many as eleven Zeppelins (more likely four) attacked England in a mass air-raid. Two were shot down, LZ 76 by ground fire, and LZ 74 by Lt Frederick Sowrey^{[1][better source needed]}

• 1913 – Roland Garros (right) makes the first air crossing of the Mediterranean Sea. He flies the 729 km (453 miles) from Saint-RaphaëltoBizerte in 7 hours 53 min.

• 1911 – The first US airmail flight is made. Earle Ovington flies 9.7 km (6 miles) from Nassau Boulevard, New York to Mineola, New York.

• 1910 – The Peruvian Geo Chavez flies the Blériot-monoplane over the Alps from Brig (Switzerland) to Domodossola (Italy) reaching a height of 2,200 metres (7,200 ft), but was killed in a crash landing.

References[edit]

September 24

• 2010 – Wind Jet Flight 243, operated by Airbus A319-132 EI-EDM,^[1] landed short of the runway at Punta Raisi Airport, Palermo, Italy after encountering a thunderstorm and windshear on approach. The aircraft was substantially damaged when it impacted the localiser. Both main undercarriage sets collapsed and the aircraft was evacuated by the emergency slides.^[2] Around 20 passengers were injured in the evacuation.^[1]

• 2009 – SA Airlink flight SA 8911, a BAe Jetstream 41, registration ZS-NRM, crashes shortly after take-off from Durban International Airport due to an engine failure. The aircraft is destroyed but the three crew members survive with serious injuries.

• 2009 – A French Navy Aviation navale test flight involving two Dassault Rafale aircraft flying back to the Aircraft Carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91) collide in mid-air. The incident occurred in the Mediterranean of the coast of Perpignan, Pyrénées-Orientales, France and one pilot was rescued after ejecting from the aircraft the second pilot listed as missing.

• 2008 – A Serbian Air Force SOKO G-4 Super Galeb basic trainer/light attack jet aircraft with serial number 23736 flown by Lt. Colonel Ištvan Kanas crashed at Batajnica Air Base. Ištvan Kanas (aged 43), pilot of Flight Test Section (Sektor za letna ispitivanja - SLI) unfortunately did not survive the crash. Kanas was a top Serbian test pilot and member of the private aerobatics team and former member of Leteće Zvezde aerobatics team, officials say he was practicing for an upcoming Belgrade 2008 airshow. He was a father of two. This is the second G-4 Super Galeb ever to crash with tragic consequences after 21 years.

• 2007 – A Let L-410 (reg 9Q-CVL) owned by Free Airlines crashes on landing at Malemba-Nkulu, DRC from Lubumbashi

• 2001 – 13 days after 9/11, US Airways decided to terminate all flights from MetroJet.

• 1987 – A Tornado F3, ZE155, from Boscombe Down, made the first non-stop un-refuelled crossing of the Atlantic by a British jet fighter. The sortie covered 2,200nms in 4 hr 45 min, and took place as the aircraft returned from Arizona after a series of tropical trials.

• 1975 – Garuda Indonesia Flight 150, a Fokker F-28 Fellowship, crashes while on approach to Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II Airport in foggy weather; 25 of 61 on board die; one person on the ground also dies.

• 1973 – RAF Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1A, XV739, 'V', of 1 Squadron, crashes at Episkopi Cantonment, Cyprus, during the climbing transition from hover during a display rehearsal. Pilot ejects.

• 1972 – Japan Airlines Flight 472, a Douglas DC-8 with 122 on board, overruns the runway after landing at the wrong airport; no fatalities.

• 1968 – A Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker crash during an emergency landing at Wake Island produces the first tanker casualty in the Southeast Asia war. The crash claims 11 Arc Light support personnel redeploying from U-Tapao Air Base, Thailand.

• 1966 – Marina Solovyeva sets a new women's airspeed record of 2,044 kilometres per hour (1,270 mph) in the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-76

• 1959 – The 1959 TAI Douglas DC-7 accident occurred when the DC-7 crashed into a pine forest on departure from Bordeax Airport, France, 54 of the 65 people on board are killed.

• 1959 – A Lockheed U-2C, 56-6693, Article 360, of the SAC's 4028th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (SRS), Detachment C, out of Atsugi Air Force Base, Japan, and clandestinely operated by the CIA, runs out of fuel and pilot Tom Crull makes an emergency landing at the civilian airfield at Fujisawa, damaging belly. The black-painted aircraft with no identity markings attracts curious locals, and officials and Military Police are quickly dispatched to cordon-off the area. This they do at gunpoint, which attracts even more attention and pictures of the highly secret U-2C soon appear in the Japanese press. Factory repaired and assigned to Det. B, this is the airframe that pilot Francis Gary Powers will be shot down in on 1 May 1960. The 20th U-2 built, it was delivered to the CIA on 5 November 1956. Used for test and development work from 1957 to May 1959. Converted to U-2C by 18 August 1959.

• 1958 – Guided air-to-air missiles are used in combat for the first time when Republic of China Air Force F-86 F Sabres use AAM-N-7 Sidewinder IA – Later known as AIM-9 B Sidewinder IA – missiles to down several People’s Republic of China MiG-15 fighters.

• 1958 – Twelfth of 13 North American X-10s, GM-52-5, c/n 12, on X-10 Drone BOMARC target mission 1, out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The remaining X-10s are expended as targets for Bomarc and Nike antiaircraft missiles. The X-10 flies out over the ocean, then accelerates toward the Cape at supersonic speed. A Bomarc A missile comes within lethal miss distance. The X-10 then autolands on the Skid Strip, but both the drag chute and landing barrier fail. The vehicle runs off the runway and explodes.

• 1958 – During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, a dogfight breaks out between 32 Republic of China Air Force F-86F Sabres and over 100 People's Republic of China MiG aircraft. During the engagement, guided air-to-air missiles are employed in combat for the first time when the Sabres use AAM-N-7 Sidewinder IA – later known as AIM-9B Sidewinder IA – missiles to down several MiG-15 (NATO reporting name "Fagot") fighters and at least ten MiG-17s (NATO reporting name "Fresco").

• 1957 – US Air Force Major James Melancon, 36, of Dallas, Texas, is killed when the Douglas B-26 Invader he was piloting crashes in a residential area near Dayton, Ohio at 1659 hrs. Coming down at 1843 Tuttle Avenue, the flight, out of Wright Field, strikes a home, killing the pilot, co-pilot Capt. Wilho R. Heikkinen, 31, and two on the ground, and injuring others. Mildred VanZant, 44, an assistant director of nursing at St. Elizabeth Hospital, was killed when the plane impacted her house. Her brother Walter Geisler, 53, was mowing the lawn behind the house when he was killed. Four houses were struck by wreckage and two were set alight. An investigation determined that a loose engine cowling moved forward into the propeller. The pilot's son, Mark E. Melancon, will die in the Thunderbirds demonstration team Diamond Crash in Nevada in 1982.

• 1956 – The Luftwaffe is re-formed in West Germany

• 1949 – First flight of the North American T-28 Trojan

• 1946 – The Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific is founded.

• 1944 – More than 30 U. S. Navy carrier aircraft from Task Force 38 sink the Japanese seaplane tender Akitsushima in Coron Bay off Coron Island in the Philippine Islands with the loss of 86 lives.

• 1940 – (24-26) A British naval force supports a disastrous Free French attempt at an amphibious invasion of Dakar. Vichy French forces resist successfully, and HMS Ark Royal loses nine Swordfish aircraft before operations are called off.

• 1940 – (24-25) French Air Force bombers raid Gibraltar in retaliation for the British July attacks on French warships at Mers-el-Kébir and Dakar.

• 1938 – (24-25) Three Soviet women – Valentina Grizodubova, Polina Osipenko, and Marina Raskova – Fly the Tupolev ANT-37 Rodina (“Motherland”) nonstop across the Soviet Union, achieving a women’s world nonstop distance record of 5,913 kilometres (3,674 mi) in 26 hours 29 min.

• 1930 – First flight of the Short Rangoon

• 1930 – John W. Young (Date of Birth), American astronaut who walked on the Moon on April 21, 1972 during the Apollo 16 mission, was born. Young enjoyed one of the longest and busiest careers of any astronaut in the American space program. He was the first person to fly into space six times, twice journeyed to the Moon, and as of 2007, is the only person to have piloted four different classes of spacecraft.

• 1929 – Lt Jimmy Doolittle (right) makes a completely blind take-off, flight, and landing.

• 1925 – During the 1925 Schneider Trophy race, British entry Supermarine S.4 loses control, is seen to side-slip, then pancakes into the Chesapeake Bay, landing on the front of its floats and overturning. Pilot Henri Biard swims free of airframe and is rescued. British officials intimate that the pilot banked too steeply and stalled, but designer R.J. Mitchell suspected that the cantilever wing design may have been partially at fault. Another British entry, Gloster IIIA, suffers broken strut between float and fuselage during taxi after landing from first run which allows nose to drop, propeller cuts into duralumin float, making airframe unable to compete. Lt. Jimmy DoolittleinU.S. Army Curtiss R3C-2, BuNo A6979, '3', wins competition with top speed of 233 miles per hour (375 km/h).

• 1918 – Lt David Ingalls claims his fifth victory, to become the only US Navy ace of World War I.

• 1911 – The Royal Navy’s first rigid airship, HMA No. 1, also known as Mayfly, breaks in half and is wrecked during a pre-commissioning ground test.

• 1852 – English engineer Henri Giffard flies 27 km (17 miles) in a steam-powered dirigible, reaching a speed of about 10 kilometres per hour (6.2 mph).

References[edit]

September 25

• 2012 – The People's Republic of China commissions its first aircraft carrier, Liaoning, at Dalian Port, China.^[1]

• 2011 – Buddha Air Flight 103, a Beechcraft 1900D, crashes while attempting to land in dense fog at Kathmandu Tribhuwan International Airport, killing all 16 passengers and 3 crew members.

• 1998 – PauknAir Flight 4101, a BAe 146, leaves Málaga but never reaches its destination in Melilla. All passengers and crew perish.

• 1997 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-86 at 10:34:19 pm EDT. Mission highlights: Shuttle-Mir docking.

• 1991 – First flight of the British Aerospace Jetstream 41

• 1978 – PSA Flight 182, a Boeing 727, collides with a Cessna 172 over San Diego, California, United States; all 135 aboard the airliner, both pilots of the Cessna, and 7 people on the ground are killed, making this the worst aviation disaster in California history.

• 1975 – A flight of four Lockheed F-104G Starfighters of the Aeronautica Militare Italiana (Italian Air Force) crash in formation into a field near the village of Ralingen near the border with Luxembourg, ~12 miles S of Bitburg, West Germany, shortly after take-off from Bitburg Air Base, killing all four pilots. The four jets flown by an Italian Air Force lieutenant colonel and three captains came down just five minutes after departing. The Bitburg control tower operated by the United States Air Force in Europe said that radio contact with the flight was lost almost immediately after they took off into overcast skies. "They crashed in line, the four craters being within an area of one square kilometer (about four-tenths of a square mile)," a German defense ministry spokesman said. The last crash of a formation of Starfighters occurred in West Germany in 1962 when an American pilot teaching stunt flying to three Germans led his formation in a dive into an abandoned strip mine near Cologne.

• 1964 – The No. 412 (T) Squadron became the first Regular Force squadron in the Royal Canadian Air Force to complete twenty-five years of service and to receive its squadron standard.

• 1960 – A U. S. Navy F4H-1F Phantom II sets a world speed record over a 100-km (62.1-mi) closed-circuit course, averaging 1,390.24 mph (2,237.27 km/hr). FAI Record File Number 8898.

• 1959 – A United States Navy Martin P5M-2 Marlin, BuNo 135540, SG tailcode, '6', of VP-50, out of NAS Whidbey Island, Washington on Puget Sound, is forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles (160 km) W of the Washington-Oregon border after fire in the port engine, loss of electrical power. A Betty depth bomb casing is lost and never recovered, but it was not fitted with a nuclear core. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Yocona, out of Astoria, Oregon, rescues all ten crew after ten hours in a raft. A Coast Guard Grumman UF Albatross amphibian directed the vessel to the crew. The press was not notified at the time.

• 1958 – Boeing RB-47E-25-BW Stratojet, 52-276, c/n 450947, is written off when it veers off runway, landing gear collapses, port inner engine nacelle torn from mount, suffers fire. Post crash footage: http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675022547_Boeing-B-47-Stratojet-bomber_crash-during-take-off_officers-examining_runway

• 1958 – Supermarine Scimitar F.1, XD240, 'V-145', of 803 Naval Air Squadron, arriving aboard from RNAS Lossiemouth via RNAS Yeovilton, falls off the side of HMS Victorious at low speed into the English Channel off Portsmouth after failure of the No.1 arrestor wire upon landing. The pilot, Cdr. John Desmond Russell, the Squadron CO, is unable to open the canopy, and trapped in the cockpit, he drowns when the airframe sinks to the seabed, despite efforts of plane guard crewmen Lt. R. A. Duxbury from the rescue Westland Whirlwind. Members of the press had been invited along to watch 803 Squadron embark. Nose of aircraft and pilot's body recovered four weeks later.

• 1955 – The Royal Jordanian Air Force is founded.

• 1953 – The last Boeing B-29 Superfortress to be delivered, Boeing-Wichita-built B-29-100-BW, 45-21872, in September 1945, converted to a WB-29, was destroyed in a crash this date near Eielson AFB, Alaska, while assigned to the 58th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (Medium), Weather.

• 1945 – First flight of the de Havilland Dove

• 1943 – (25-26) Allied aircraft attack airfields on Corsica and ferry traffic between Corsica and Italy, and shoot down four German transport aircraft.

• 1942 – S/L KA Boomer, CO of No. 111 Squadron, destroyed a Japanese Nakajima A6 M2-N (Ruff) fighter over Kiska, Alaska. This was the only RCAF air combat in the North American theatre of war.

• 1940 – The bombers of the Corpo Aereo Italiano (Italian Air Corps) arrive at their base in Belgium to participate in the Battle of Britain. The fighters will arrive later.

• 1939 – Nicola di Mauro of Italy sets a world seaplane altitude record of 13,542 m (44,429 feet) in a Caproni Ca.161Idro. This record still stands for piston-engined seaplanes.

• 1939 – Blackburn B-24 Skua crewed by Lt. Bruce Straton McEwan, RN, and Petty Officer B. M. Seymour of No. 803 Squadron, launched from HMS Ark Royal, becomes the first British fighter to down a German aircraft in World War II when they attack a Dornier Do 18 flying boat over the North Sea.

• 1932 – Lewis Yancey sets an autogiro (right) altitude record of 21,500 ft (6,553 m) in a Pitcairn PCA-2

• 1918 – Chief Machinist's Mate Francis E. Ormsbee went to the rescue of two men in a plane which had crashed in Pensacola Bay, Florida. He pulled out the gunner and held him above water until help arrived, then made repeated dives into the wreckage in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the pilot. For his heroism, Chief Ormsbee was awarded the Medal of Honor.

• 1912 – Charles Voisin dies and Raymonde de Laroche suffers serious injuries in an automobile accident near Lyons, France.

• 1909 – French Army airship La République crashes over Avrilly, Allier, killing its crew of four. It was caused by a broken propeller which sheared through the envelop causing rapid leakage. This crash marks the first military airship fatalities.

• 1903 – The Wright brothers arrive at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to begin tests of their first powered aircraft.

References[edit]

September 26

• 2011 – Boeing delivers its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner to a customer, All Nippon Airways, at Paine FieldinWashington.^[1]

• 2008 – Yves Rossy, Swiss airline pilot and former fighter pilot, crosses the English Channel with his homemade jet-powered wing strapped on his back.

• 1997 – Garuda Indonesia Flight 152, an Airbus A300, crashes into a mountain near Buah Nabar, Indonesia, killing all 234 on board.

• 1993 – Launch: Spot-3 satellite. Stopped functioning November 14, 1997.

• 1986 – First flight of the Piaggio Avanti

• 1983 – Cosmonauts Titov and Strekalov are saved from exploding Soyuz T-10.

• 1981 – First flight of the Boeing 767-200

• 1981 – Vietnamese Cosmonaut Bùi Thanh Liêm (June 30, 1949–September 26, 1981), a native of Hanoi, Vietnam, is killed in a training flight in a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 over the Gulf of Tonkin this date.

• 1980 – First flight of the Shanghai Y-10

• 1977 – Laker Airways inaugurates its no-booking "Skytrain" service between London and New York

• 1976 – A USAF Boeing KC-135A-BN Stratotanker, 61-0296, c/n 18203, of the 46th Air Refueling Squadron, Strategic Air Command, on a routine tanker training mission en route from K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan, to Offutt AFB, Nebraska (two sources list Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan as its destination), crashes at 0830 hrs. EDT in a densely wooded swampy area near Alpena, Michigan, killing 15 of the 20 on board. Possible cabin pressurization problem may have led to the accident.

• 1974 – The first CF C-130 H was delivered to the RCAF 435 Squadron.

• 1973 – The Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time, though the record would go on to be broken a few more times until the aircraft’s retirement in 2003.

• 1967 – The governments of France, West Germany, and Britain sign a memorandum that calls for the development of the Airbus A300 wide-bodied jet airliner.

• 1965 – First flight of the LTV A-7 Corsair II

• 1961 – A USAF Boeing RB-47K-BW Stratojet, 53-4279, of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, loses number six engine during take-off from Forbes AFB, Kansas, crashes, killing all four crew, aircraft commander Lt. Col. James G. Woolbright, copilot 1st Lt. Paul R. Greenwalt, navigator Capt. Bruce Kowol, and crewchief S/Sgt. Myron Curtis. Cause was contaminated water-alcohol in assisted takeoff system.

• 1957 – A3D-1 crash on USS Forrestal (CVA-59).

• 1951 – First flight of the de Havilland Sea Vixen

• 1947 – General Carl A. Spaatz becomes the first Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force.

• 1943 – A Vought OS2U Kingfisher from Naval Air Station New York, Floyd Bennett Field, crashes 7 miles S of Little Egg Inlet, near Atlantic City, New Jersey. Two survivors are picked up by Coast Guard 83-foot Patrol Boat WPB-83340.

• 1939 – Flying a No. 803 Squadron Blackburn Skua from HMS Ark Royal, Lieutenant B. S. McEwen of the Fleet Air Arm’s No. 803 Squadron scores the second British victory over a German aircraft of World War II, shooting down a Dornier Do 18. Skuas were originally credited with the first confirmed kill, but an earlier victory by a Fairey Battle on 20 September 1939 over Aachen, was later confirmed by French sources.

• 1927 – Schneider Trophy race flown at Venice, Italy. Won by Flight Lt. S. N Webster (UK) in a Supermarine S5 at 453.2 km/h (281.7mph).

• 1917 – For the second time, French ace René Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day.

• 1916 – Flying ace Leutnant Max Ritter von Mulzer (ten aerial victories credited), the first Bavarian fighter ace, first Bavarian ace recipient of the Pour le Merite, and first Bavarian knighted for his exploits, on this date sideslips Albatros D.I 426/16 into a hard bank, loses control, and crashes at Armee Flug Park 6, Valenciennes, with fatal result.

• 1909 – The brothers Alexander and Anatol Renner fly an airship (which they had designed and built themselves) for the first time, making eight flights over the autumn fair at Graz. They are the first airship flights in Austria-Hungary.

• 1897 – Arthur Rhys Davids, English pilot, is born (d. 1917). Davids was credited with having brought down Germany’s Werner Voss on 23 September 1917, in one of the most famous dogfights of World War I.

References[edit]

September 27

• 2011 – (Overnight) All Nippon Airways flies the first delivery flight of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, from Paine Field, Washington, to Tokyo International Airport.

• 1992 – Military transport plane crashes in Lagos, Nigeria killing 163

• 1990 – United Air Lines is the first airline to introduce satellite communications for its aircraft

• 1977 – Japan Airlines Flight 715, a Douglas DC-8, crashes into a hillside while on approach to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, killing 34 of 79 on board.

• 1977 – A1977 Yokohama F-4 crash: A United States Navy McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II based at nearby Naval Air Facility Atsugi suffered a mechanical malfunction, caught fire, and crashed into a residential neighborhood. The crash killed two young boys, ages 1 and 3, and injured seven others, several seriously. The two-man crew of the aircraft ejected and were not seriously injured.

• 1973 – Texas International Airlines Flight 655, a Convair 600, crashes into Black Fork Mountain while avoiding thunderstorms, killing all 11 passengers and crew on board.

• 1967 – A Lockheed SP-2H Neptune, BuNo 147946, of VP-30, collides with a US Navy Vought RF-8G Crusader, BuNo 146864, assigned to VFP-62, Detachment 38, NAS Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida, during a heavy rainstorm, near Jacksonville Beach, Florida, crashing on the swampy east bank of the Intracoastal Waterway. The Crusader, which was operating off of the USS Shangri-La, also impacts near Jacksonville Beach. The Neptune was carrying two officers and three enlisted men. The pilot was the only occupant of the jet. All six KWF.

• 1964 – First flight of the BAC TSR.2

• 1956 – Retired: Bell X-2

• 1956 – Test pilot Mel Apt is killed on the 17th flight of the Bell X-2, 46-674, out of Edwards Air Force Base, California, when he attempts a turn at Mach 3.2 (nearly 2,100 mph), and the airframe goes into a vicious case of inertia coupling. Apt jettisons the escape capsule but runs out of height before he can bail out of the falling nose section.

• 1954 – Entered Service: North American F-100 Super Sabre with the United States Air Force‘s 479th Fighter Wing

• 1954 – Sole Folland Midge prototype, G-39-1, crashes into trees at Chilbolton, England, killing the Swiss pilot. Cause was believed to have been inadvertent application of full nose-down trim.

• 1950 – An Argentine Air Force Vickers VC.1 Viking, T-8, was burnt out in a hangar fire at El Palomar, Argentina.

• 1946 – Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr., is killed when de Havilland DH 108, TG306, second prototype, breaks up in flight, coming down in the Thames near Egypt Bay.

• 1943 – German night fighter ace Hauptmann Hans-Dieter Frank dies in a collision with another night fighter over Hanover, Germany. His score stands at 55 kills at his death.

• 1941 – During Operation Halberd, Italian aircraft attack a Malta-bound convoy and its escorts in the Mediterranean, damaging the British battleship HMS Nelson and fatally damaging a merchant cargo ship.

• 1940 – S/L Ernie McNab became the first RCAF ace during WWII.

• 1922 – The US Navy conducts the first large-scale torpedo bombing exercises. Eighteen Naval Aircraft Factory PTs attack three battleships and score 8 hits in 25 min.

• 1922 – Dr. Albert Taylor and Leo Young, scientists at the US Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory, make the first successful detections of objects by “radio observation”. They use wireless waves to detect objects not visible due to weather or darkness. This insight leads to the advent of radar.

• 1914 – The first French bomber group is formed.

• 1913 – Katherine Stinson becomes the first woman in the United States to make an official airmail flight.

• 1910 – First test flight of a twin-engined aircraft took place in France.

• 1909 – First flight of the Short Biplane No. 2

• 1908 – Thérèse Peltier makes a flight of 200 m (656 feet) at a height of approximately 2.5 m (8 feet) at the Military Square in Turin, Italy. Photos of Peltier with the aeroplane are published on 27 September. Unofficially, it is the first flight by a female aviator.

• 1894 – Lothar von Richthofen German pilot was born. (d. 1922) Richtofen was a German First World War fighter ace credited with 40 victories during the war. He was younger brother of top-scoring ace Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) and a cousin of the Luftwaffe field marshal Wolfram von Richthofen.

References[edit]

September 28

• 2012 – Sita Air Flight 601, a Dornier 228 carrying British, Chinese, and Nepalese trekkers to the Mount Everest region, strikes a bird shortly after takeoff from Tribhuvan International AirportinKathmandu, Nepal, crashes on the bank of the Manohara RiveratMadhyapur Thimi 500 meters (547 yards) short of the runway while attempting to return to the airport, and burns. All 19 people on board die. It is the seventh fatal air crash in Nepal since August 2010.^[1][2]

• 2009 – A Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) NAMC YS-11 a twin-engined turboprop transport crashed while landing at JMSDF Ozuki Air Field in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. The landing in light rain, the aircraft suffered an overshoot of the runway and crashed through the airfield perimeter fence, crossing a service road and plunged nose-first into a rice field. The 11 JMSDF crew members of the aircraft were uninjured and the NAMC YS-11 aircraft suffered bent propellers.

• 2007 – First flight of the Kawasaki P-1

• 2000 – A U.S. Navy Beechcraft T-34C Turbo-Mentor of VT-10 crashes in a hayfield in Baldwin County near Silverhill, Alabama, killing both crew. Navy flight instructor, Lt. James S. McComber, 31, of Apple Valley, Minnesota, and his student pilot, Air Force 2nd Lt. Alex Velkov, 23, of Mountain View, California, an Air Force navigator, were flying out of NAS Whiting Field when the afternoon accident occurred. "The plane looked like it was in trouble," said witness Danny Brand, who was questioned by investigators. "(The plane) began rolling to the right, tried to fire up the engine and then corkscrewed straight down to the ground."

• 1992 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 268, an Airbus A300, crashes near Kathmandu, Nepal, killing all 12 crew and 155 passengers.

• 1988 – First flight of the Ilyushin Il-96

• 1981 – During a Navair weapons release test over the Chesapeake Bay, a McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18A-3-MC Hornet, BuNo 160782, c/n 8, out of NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, drops a vertical ejector bomb rack with an inert Mk. 82 bomb from the port wing, which shears off the outer starboard wing of Douglas TA-4J Skyhawk camera chase plane, BuNo 156896, c/n 13989, which catches fire as it begins an uncontrolled spin. Two crew successfully eject before the Skyhawk impacts in the bay, the whole sequence caught on film from a second chase aircraft. Video of this accident is widely available on the web.

• 1980 – Jaromir Wagner was the first to fly the Atlantic standing on wing.

• 1980 – Iraqi Tupolev Tu-22s land in Riyadh after bombing Iran

• 1977 – Japan Airlines Flight 472, a Douglas DC-8, is hijacked after taking off from Mumbai, India by Japanese Red Army (JRA) terrorists, who force the plane to land in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where they demand US$6,000,000 and the release of nine imprisoned JRA members being held in Japan; the Japanese government complies and all of the hostages are eventually released.

• 1971 – A USN Lockheed P-3 Orion, on patrol over the Sea of Japan, is fired on by a Soviet Sverdlov class cruiser in international waters. The P-3 was checking a group of Soviet Navy ships cruising off the shore of Japan when crew members reported seeing tracer rounds fired well ahead of the Orion. Immediately following the incident, authorities recalled the P-3 to its base at MCAS Iwakuni, and all surveillance craft were pulled back five miles.

• 1954 – Fourth of 13 North American X-10s, GM-19310, c/n 4, on Navaho X-10 flight number 10, a structural test flight, successfully makes extreme manoeuvres at Mach 1.84. However automated landing system attempts to make landing flare 6 m below the runway level at Edwards AFB, California. Vehicle impacts at high speed and is destroyed. However the flight sets a speed record for a turbojet-powered aircraft.

• 1952 – Nos. 416, 421 and 430 Squadrons flew in stages from Canada to their new base at Grostenquin, Germany, where they formed No. 2 Fighter Wing.

• 1952 – First flight of the Dassault Mystère IV

• 1934 – Lufthansa, Germany’s national airline flies its millionth customer.

• 1933 – Lemoine sets a new altitude record of 13,661 m (44,820 ft) in a Potez 50

• 1927 – Lt Dick Bently of the South African Air Force arrives in South Africa after having made the first solo flight there from England. He left LondononSeptember 1.

• 1923 – Schneider Trophy race flown at Cowes, UK. Won by David Rittenhouse (USA) in a Curtiss CR.3 at 285.5 km/h (177.4 mph).

• 1921 – Piloting the same United States Army Air Service Packard-Le Peré LUSAC-11 fighter that set a world altitude record on February 27, 1920, Lieutenant John A. Macready sets a new world altitude record of 10,518 m (34,508 feet). Macready receives the Mackay Trophy for the flight.

• 1920 – American pilot Howard Rinehart, flying a Dayton-Wright R. B Racer, becomes the first person to fly an airplane fitted with retractable landing gear.

• 1912 – Wright Model B, U.S. Army Signal Corps serial number 4, crashes at College Park Airport, Maryland killing two crew, Lieutenant L.C. Rockwell and Corporal Frank S. Scott. On 20 July 1917, the Signal Corps Aviation School is named Rockwell Field in honor of 2nd Lt. Lewis C. Rockwell, killed in this crash, and Scott Field, Illinois is named for the first enlisted personnel killed in an aviation crash. Scott Air Force Base remains the only U.S. Air Force base named for an enlisted man.

References[edit]

September 29

• 2011 – Nusantara Buana CASA C-212 crash: A CASA C-212 Aviocar operated by Nusantara Buana Air, crashed half way through its flight from Polonia International Airport in Indonesia. The crash killed all eighteen people on board; fourteen passengers and four crew.

• 2009 – Greek state-owned airline Olympic Airlines ceased operation.It was replaced by privately owned Olympic Air, which commenced operations on this day.

• 2009 – British Airways operates the first transatlantic flight from London City Airport: BA001 (a flight number unused since Concorde retired), an all-business class Airbus A318.

• 2007 – Dash 8 landing gear incidents: Two separate failures occurred within four days of each other on Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 aircraft, all operated by Scandinavian Airlines (SAS). A third incident, again with an SAS aircraft, occurred in October 2007, leading to the withdrawal of the type from the airline’s fleet.

• 2006 – Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907, a Boeing 737-800, collides with an Embraer Legacy business jet and crashes in Mato Grosso, Brazil; the Embraer Legacy, with seven on board, lands safely with no reported injuries while all 154 people on board the Boeing 737 perish; this crash marks the first loss of a Boeing 737-800.

• 2004 – The Burt Rutan Ansari X Prize entry SpaceShipOne performed a successful spaceflight, the first of two needed to win the prize.

• 1998 – Lionair Flight 602, an Antonov An-24, is shot down by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and crashes off the coast of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, killing all 55 on board.

• 1988 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-26 at 15:37:00 UTC. Mission highlights: TDRS deployment; first post Challenger flight.

• 1995 – The United States Navy disestablishes Fighter Squadron #84 (VF-84), the celebrated Jolly Rogers.

• 1988 – NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster, with STS-26.

• 1971 – A USAF Lockheed C-5A Galaxy of the 443d Military Airlift Wing, Altus AFB, Oklahoma, one of six used for training, had its number one (port outer) engine tear off the pylon while advancing take-off power before brake release, setting the wing on fire. The crew evacuated safely within 90 seconds and the fire was extinguished by emergency equipment. The engine had flown up and behind the Galaxy, landing some 250 yards to the rear. The Air Force subsequently grounded six other C-5s with similar flight hours and cycles. Further investigation found cracks in younger C-5s and the entire fleet was grounded.

• 1964 – The first take-off and landing of the LTV-Hiller-Ryan XC-142 A vertical take-off transport is made in Dallas, Texas. The aircraft has four 2,850-hp General Electric turboprops mounted on the wings that can pivot 90 degrees to allow for a vertical take-off.

• 1959 – Braniff Flight 542, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, breaks up in mid-air and crashes 4 miles (6.4 km) from Buffalo, Texas; all 34 on board perish.

• 1954 – The new Downsview Ontario plant of DeHavilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd was opened by the Right Honourable CD Howe.

• 1954 – First flight of the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo jet fighter makes its first flight, flown by test pilot Robert C. Little. An advanced design of the XF-88, the Voodoo goes supersonic on its first flight.

• 1951 – A Royal Air Force Boeing Washington B.1, WF555, of 57 Squadron, RAF Waddington, experiences runaway propeller on number 3 (starboard inner) engine which hits number 4 (starboard outer) causing severe damage. Three crew in rear fuselage ordered to bail out before bomber makes successful wheels-up landing at a disused airfield near Amiens, France - no casualties, but airframe written off. Scrapped 3 January 1952.

• 1948 – First flight of the Vought XF7U-1 Cutlass, a prototype of the F7U Cutlass

• 1946 – The United States Navy Lockheed P2 V Neptune Truculent Turtle, piloted by Commander Thomas D. Davies and aided by four JATO rockets, departs Perth, Australia, bound nonstop for Naval Air Station Anacostia in Washington, D. C. On take-off, it weighs 85,575 lbs (38,817 kg), the heaviest twin-engine aircraft ever to take off up to that time. Although bad weather forces the plane to land short of Washington in Columbus, Ohio, after 55 hours 17 min continuously in the air, the flight nonetheless sets a new nonstop, unrefueled world distance record of 11,235.6 nautical miles (20,807 km) which stands for 16 years until broken by a U. S. Air Force B-52 H Stratofortress in 1962.

• 1946 – Blue Angels pilot Lt. (JG) Ros "Robby" Robinson is killed in Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat, BuNo 95986, Blue Angels No. 4, at NAS Jacksonville, Florida, when he fails to pull out of a dive during a Cuban Eight manoeuvre - wingtip broke off his fighter.

• 1945 – Silverplate Boeing B-29 Superfortress, 44-27303, named "Jabit III", of the 509th Composite Group, Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, on cross-country training mission, strikes several objects on landing at Chicago Municipal Airport, Illinois, never flies again. Assigned to the 4200th Base Unit at the airport pending disposition decision, it is salvaged there in April 1946.

• 1940 – The 1940 Brocklesby mid-air collision occurred over Brocklesby, New South Wales, Australia. The accident was unusual in that the aircraft involved, two Avro Ansons of No. 2 Service Flying Training School RAAF, remained locked together after colliding, and then managed to land safely. Both navigators bailed out after the aircraft struck, followed shortly afterwards by the injured pilot of the lower Anson. The pilot of the upper Anson, however, found that he was able to control the interlocked aircraft using his ailerons and flaps, coupled with the still-functioning engines on the machine underneath. He was then able to make a successful emergency landing in a paddock near Brocklesby. All four crewmen survived the incident, and the Ansons were repaired and remained in service with the Air Force.

• 1934 – A London, Scottish & Provincial Airways Airspeed Courier crashes at Tiverton Bottom, Shoreham, Kent, in the United Kingdom, killing all four people on board. Flying debris injures two people on the ground.

• 1931 – First flight of the Marinens Flyvebaatfabrikk M.F.11

• 1931 – Following the Schneider Trophy success, Flt Lt. George Stainforth in S.6 B serial S1596 breaks the 400 mph air speed record barrier at 407.5 miles per hour (655.8 km/h).

• 1929 – The first flight at Cartierville of Reid Rambler. A Canadian-designed and built trainer; it was intended to fill the needs of flying clubs. It was a sesquiplane with folding wings to facilitate storage and it had incorporated Warren truss bracing that eliminated the need for bracing wires.

• 1929 – Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte arrive in Manchuria in a Breguet 19 (right), having set a new distance record of 7,905 km (4,912 miles) from Le Bourget, France.

• 1927 – Georg Wulf, co-founder of Focke-Wulf, is killed in the crash of the first Focke-Wulf F 19 Ente ("Duck"), D-1960. Second airframe is constructed, eventually put on display in Berlin air museum, destroyed in bombing raid in 1944.

• 1922 – First flight of the Thomas-Morse R-5, also known as the Thomas-Morse TM-22

• 1921 – First Orenco D manufactured by Curtiss, 63281, McCook Project Number 'P163', loses entire leading edge of its upper wing, crashing at McCook Field, Ohio. An investigation by an officer of the flying test section of the USAAS Engineering Division reveals that the Orenco Ds are badly constructed, no fewer than 30 defects and faulty fittings being recorded in the published report, forcing the Air Service to withdraw all Orenco Ds from use (Joe Baugher cites date of 28 September).

• 1918 – Second Lieutenant Frank Luke, the second-highest-scoring American ace of World War I with 18 victories, is killed in action.

• 1909 – Wilbur Wright begins flights as part of New York City’s Hudson-Fulton Celebration.

• 1907 – Louis Breguet and Charles Robert Richet demonstrate their Breguet-Richet Gyroplane No. 1, the first rotorcraft to lift a person off the ground. (The craft is still controlled by handlers standing around it on the ground).

• 1895 – Roscoe Turner, American aviator and racer was born (d. 1970).

References[edit]

{{#ifexpr:30>29

 |September 1

• 2012 – Heavy fighting takes place between Syrian government and rebel forces at the Syrian Air Force college at Rasm al-Abboud and at the Syrian Air Force base at Abu ad Duhur, and rebel forces overrun a government air defense building in Deir ez-zor.^[1]

• 2009 – Slovak airline SkyEurope suspends operations.

• 2007 – Radom Air Show crash: Two aerobatics aircraft collided during Radom Air Show, two pilots died in a crash.

• 2006 – Iran Air Tours Flight 945, a Tupolev Tu-154, crashes while attempting to land in Mashad, Iran, killing 28 of 154 on board.

• 1983 – Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a Boeing 747, is shot down by Soviet fighter planes near Sakhalin and Moneron Island after straying into Soviet airspace; all 269 people on board are killed.

• 1983 – A Boeing-Vertol UH-46 Sea Knight loses power on lift-off from the deck of Spruance-class destroyer USS Fife during her first deployment, strikes the NATO Sea Sparrow missile mount, leaving the stricken helicopter hanging over the ship's starboard side. Fife's damage control teams quickly lash the UH-46 in place and all 16 personnel are rescued without serious injury. After pulling into Singapore to crane off the damaged helicopter, the warship sails west to Diego Garcia to receive a new Sea Sparrow mount.

• 1975 – Egyptian Air Force Tupolev Tu-16K11-16 Badger, 4403, crashed over the Menya area of Egypt. It had a left engine fire and the bullets of the second navigator's gun were exploding. Pilot Wing Commander Mohamed Keraidy refused to bail out as he tried to rescue his crew. The intercom was disabled due to the fire. Co-pilot Fl. Lt. Adel El Fiky bailed out safely. Major Samir Abdel Fattah, 1st Navigator, died while trying to eject. Captain Salah El Menshawy, 2nd Navigator, died instantly from the explosion of the oxygen thermos behind him in the bomber. Keraidy finally bailed out several minutes after putting the bomber in a dive position into the river Nile in order to reduce the explosion. Gunner and radioman did not escape the aircraft and were KWF. The pilot was taken by a helicopter to the Maadi military hospital in Cairo and died in the ICU several hours later. This crash was the longest emergency case in the Egyptian Air Force. Wing Commander Keraidy was the first Egyptian officer to be given the Golden Military Bravery Medal, first Category, without dying in a battle.

• 1974 – The U. S. Air Force SR-71 Blackbird 61-17972, flown by Major James Sullivan (pilot) and Major Noel F, Widdifield (reconnaissance systems officer), crosses the Atlantic Ocean from New York City to London in a world record 1 h 54 min 56 seconds at an average speed of 1,806.96 mph (2,909.76 km/h).

• 1974 – The Sikorsky S-67 Blackhawk company demonstrator N671SA crashed while attempting to recover from a roll at too low an altitude during its display at the Farnborough Air Show, United Kingdom, killing its two crew.

• 1970 – A Vought F-8J Crusader from VF-24 suffers ramp strike on the USS Hancock and explodes during night carrier qualifications, killing Lt. Darrell N. Eggert.

• 1967 – The U. S. Navy's first dedicated search-and-rescue squadron, Helicopter Combat Support Squadron 7 (HC-7), is commissioned at Atsugi, Japan; it operates UH-2 Seasprite helicopters. Previously, all Navy search-and-rescue had been performed by helicopter antisubmarine squadrons. HC-7 will make its first rescue on October 3 in Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam.

• 1966 – Britannia Airways Flight 105, a Bristol Brittania, crashes on approach to Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport in Ljubjljana, Slovenia. 98 of the 117 passengers and crew on board were killed.

• 1961 – TWA Flight 529, a Lockheed Constellation L-049 propliner, abruptly pitches up and crashes shortly after takeoff from Chicago's Midway Airport, killing all 73 passengers and 5 crew on board; a 5/16 inch bolt which fell out of the elevator control linkage just before the crash is blamed.

• 1953 – The sole YB-47F Stratojet modified for probe-and-drogue refueling is refueled by the sole KB-47G in the first jet-to-jet aerial refueling

• 1953 – The first scheduled international helicopter service begins between Belgium and France. The service is operated by Belgian airline Sabena.

• 1952 – In the largest carrier air strike of the Korean War, 144 U. S. Navy aircraft from the aircraft carriers USS Essex (CV-9), USS Princeton (CV-37), and USS Boxer (CV-21) attack the oil refinery at Aoji, Korea. Attacks on industrial targets at Munsan and electrical plants at Chongjin are also conducted. All U. S. aircraft return safely.

• 1952 – Several tornados sweep across Carswell AFB, Texas destroying Convair B-36B Peacemaker, 44-92051, and damaging 82 others of the 11th Bomb Group, 7th Bomb Wing, including ten at the Convair plant on the other side of the Fort Worth base. Gen. Curtis LeMay is forced to remove the 19th Air Division from the war plan, and the base went on an 84-hour work week until repairs were made. 26 B-36s were returned to Convair for repairs, and the last aircraft deemed repairable was airborne again on 11 May 1953.

• 1951 – No. 443 Squadron was reformed at New Westminster, BC.

• 1951 – No. 439 Squadron was reformed at Uplands and equipped with North American Sabre fighters.

• 1950 – The number three engine of the Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-749 A Constellation Star of Maryland, operating as Flight 903, catches fire, then falls off the wing, while the aircraft is flying near Cairo, Egypt. The crew attempts an emergency landing near Ityai el Barud, Egypt, but the aircraft crashes, killing all 55 people on board. Among the dead are architect Maciej Nowicki and an Egyptian film star.

• 1948 – First flight of the Saab J-29, Sweden's first jet

• 1946 – Using Douglas DC-4 aircraft, Northwest Airlines initiates service between Seattle, Washington, and Anchorage, Alaska, as the first leg of its proposed United States-Japan North Pacific route.

• 1946 – Entered Service: Vickers Viking with British European Airways (G-AHOP)

• 1943 – Due to the vast distances involved, land-based American aircraft have flown only 102 combat sorties in the Central Pacific Area since January 1.

• 1943 – U. S. Navy aircraft from the carriers USS Essex (CV-9), USS Yorktown (CV-10), and USS Independence (CVL-22) fly six strikes totalling 275 sorties against Marcus Island, destroying several Japanese Mitsubishi G4M (Allied reporting name “Betty”) bombers on the ground in exchange for the loss of four American aircraft.

• 1943 – U. S. Army Air Force Fifth Air Force aircraft conduct a major raid against the Japanese airfield at Madang, New Guinea.

• 1943 – The U. S. Army Air Forces disband the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command, although some Army antisubmarine squadrons will operate until November.

• 1943 – The Civil Air Patrol is relieved of maritime patrol duties off the coast of the United States.

• 1943 – (1-11) The aircraft carriers USS Princeton (CVL-23) and USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) and Canton Island-based U. S. Navy PV-1 Venturas cover the unopposed American landing on Baker Island. On three occasions, F6F Hellcats from the carriers shoot down an approaching Japanese Kawanishi H8 K (Allied reporting name “Emily”) flying boat. A U. S. Army Air Forces fighter squadron arrives on Baker Island on September 11.

• 1942 – (overnight) Due to heavy German jamming of Gee, Royal Air Force Bomber Command Pathfinder aircraft go astray, marking the wrong city, and the force of 231 British bombers that sets out to attack Saarbrücken instead bombs Saarlouis 15 km (9.3 mi) to the northwest.

• 1940 – First flight of the North American P-64 (NA-68)

• 1939 – During the predawn hours of the day, a Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87 “Stuka” dive bomber flown by Leutnant Frank Neubert of I Group, Sturzkampfgeshwader 2, scores the first aerial victory of World War II, shooting down a PZL P.11c fighter flown by Polish Captain Mieczysław Medwecki. Twenty minutes later, Medwecki's wingman, Second Lieutenant Wladyslaw Gnys, flying a PZL P.11c, scores probably the first Allied aerial victories of the war, shooting down two German Dornier Do.17E bombers of Kampfgeschwader 77 over Zurada, near Olkusz, Poland, although some authors have claimed that Polish antiaircraft artillery shot down the bombers.

• 1939 – Germany invades Poland. The Luftwaffe plays a key tactical bombing role in neutralising Polish defences.

• 1939 – Second prototype Saro S.36 Lerwick twin-engine flying boat, L7249, sinks at pierside mooring at Felixstowe, Suffolk, when, after flight test at the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment (MAEE), a hatch is left improperly secured attempt by crew to save it fails as it had already shipped too much water - salvaged for static tests only.

• 1937 – First flight of the Bell YFM-1 Airacuda

• 1937 – Air Canada, Canada's largest airline, began operations.

• 1937 – Douglas Aircraft Company acquires the remaining 49 percent of the shares of its Northrop Corp. subsidiary and begins operating the facility in August 1938 as the Douglas El Segundo (Calif.) Division.

• 1937 – Supported by 250 aircraft, Spanish Nationalist forces begin an offensive against Republicans inn Asturias. The absence of the Condor Legion, which is deployed in Aragon, is felt; Nationalist progress is slow for the first six weeks.

• 1934 – Formation of Nos. 15 (Fighter) and 18 (Bomber) Squadrons on Non-Permanent Active Air Force at Montreal, Quebec, was authorized.

• 1931 – Trenton Air Station was opened by the RCAF.

• 1930 – Curtiss XF6C-6 racer, A-7147, crashes during the Thompson Trophy race in Chicago, Illinois, killing U.S. Marine Corps pilot Capt. Arthur H. Page. The only military entry, Page gained and increased an early lead but on the 17th of 20 laps, crashed to his death, a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning.

• 1925 – After modifications, the aircraft carrier HMS Furious returns to service with the Royal Navy as the first ship ever to be equipped with a round-down Located at the after end of her flight deck, the round-down, which improves air flow and gives pilots landing aboard Furious greater confidence, will become standard on aircraft carriers.

• 1923 – The Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Amagi is heavily damaged by the Great Kantō earthquake while still under conversion from a battle cruiser. She is scrapped, and the battleship Kaga is selected for conversion into an aircraft carrier instead.

• 1923 – The Royal Australian Air Force is formed.

• 1921 – President Warren Harding authorizes the creation of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, with Rear Admiral Moffet as its chief.

• 1914 – The Wakamiya arrives off Kiaochow Bay, China, to participate in operations during the Siege of Tsingtao. It is the first combat deployment of an aviation ship by any country.

• 1914 – The first U. S. tactical air unit, the First Aero Squadron, is organized because of the August outbreak of war in Europe. Based in San Diego, California, the unit has 16 officers, 77 enlisted men, and 8 airplanes.

• 1913 – Frenchman Adolphe Pégoud does the first upside-down flight.

References[edit]