Today in Aviation
- 2012 – Israel begins Operation Pillar of Defense by launching its most intense air attacks against Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip since 2008, killing the Hamas defense chief in Gaza, Ahmed al-Jabari, and striking dozens of targets before dark.[1]
- 2009 – English Electric Lightning T5 ZU-BEX crashed during an airshow at AFB Overberg, Bredasdorp, South Africa after a hydraulic failure, killing the pilot.
- 2008 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-126 at 19:55 EST. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight ULF2: MPLM Leonardo, crew rotation.
- 2006 – EasyJet announces an order for 52 Airbus A319.
- 1990 – Alitalia Flight 404, a Douglas DC-9, crashes into Mt. Stadlerberg, Switzerland, killing all 46 on board.
- 1987 – Air Transat began airline operations.
- 1982 – A Mitsubishi T-2B, 19-5174, of the Blue Impulse (or 11 Squadron) air demonstration team of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force fails to pull out of a descending bomb-burst manoeuvere following a formation loop, crashes into civilian house, Takaoka Town, Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, N of Hamamatsu Air Base, during base's 30th anniversary air show, killing pilot Capt. Takashima Kiyoshi. Thirteen civilians injured, 28 civilian houses and about 290 cars damaged. Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3-m8tIf97A&feature=related
- 1981 – Landing: Space shuttle Columbia STS-2 at 21:23:11 UTC. Mission highlights: First reuse of a manned orbital space vehicle; first test of Canadarm robot arm; Truncated due to fuel cell problem.
- 1974 – Entered Service: F-15 Eagle with the United States Air Force 555th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron at Luke Air Force Base
- 1970 – First flight of the Aerosport Rail
- 1970 – Southern Airways Flight 932, a chartered Douglas DC-9, crashes on approach at Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia, killing all 75 on board, including 37 players of the Marshall University football team and all but one of the coaching staff.
- 1967 – Two McDonnell F-101B Voodoos of the 60th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, out of Otis AFB, Massachusetts, collide over Maine during a cross-country formation flight. Aircraft 57-376 is destroyed crashing on Mount Abraham after the two-man crew ejects with minor injuries. The uninjured crew of moderately damaged aircraft 57-378 makes an emergency landing at Dow AFB, Maine.
- 1967 – A USMC Bell UH-1E Iroquois, BuNo. 153757, of VMO-3, callsign Scarface 1-0, departs Phú Bài, South Vietnam, at 1040 hrs. with three crew, pilot Capt. Milton George Kelsey, co-pilot 1st Lt. Thomas Anthony Carter, and crew chief Cpl. Ronald Joseph Phelps. At 1145 they pick up Major General Bruno Arthur Hochmuth, CG 3rd MARDIV, his aide Maj. Robert Andrew Crabtree and Liaison Maj. Nguyễn Ngọc Chương to visit ARVN Brig. Gen. Ngô Quang Trưởng in Huế, departing the hospital pad at Huế Citadel at 1145. En route to Đông Hà, the helicopter is chased by an HMM-364 UH-34 Choctaw piloted by Capt. J. A. Chancey. At 1150, the UH-1 is flying NW over Highway 1 at ~1500 feet. At YD672266, Capt. Chancey sees the aircraft’s nose yaw to the right twice and at the same instant the aft/engine section explodes in an orange fireball. The fuselage separates from the rotor and the aircraft falls in pieces. The fuselage lands inverted in a flooded rice paddy; the tail cone a short distance away. All on board are apparently killed on impact. Hochmuth was the only Marine Corps officer of General rank to die in Vietnam. Although many theories were postulated for the crash, from enemy gunfire, to ARVN gunfire, to U.S. "friendly fire", to sabotage, the most likely reason was the failure of the tail rotor gearbox and the official findings on the incident, submitted by Brig.Gen. Robert Keller in November, 1967, states “there is no evidence to indicate this mishap was caused either by hostile action or inadvertent friendly fire.”
- 1965 – (14-18) The Battle of Ia Drang in South Vietnam is the culmination of the Ia Drang Valley campaign. The U. S. Army’s helicopter assault concept has made its combat debut as the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) undergoes its baptism of fire, losing only four helicopters to North Vietnamese fire during the campaign.
- 1962 – Yukon aircraft from 437 Squadron began carrying dependants, as well as troops, to and from Canadian military forces in Europe.
- 1961 – The 1961 Cincinnati Zantop DC-4 crash: A Zantop Air Transport DC-4 was on its final approach down to Greater Cincinnati Airport runway 18, when it clipped some trees, lost altitude and crashed into a wooded area near the airport.. This aircraft was the first of at least three aircraft on their final approach that failed to reach the safety of runway 18 at the Greater Cincinnati Airport, becoming victims of the area’s hilly terrain with steep changes in elevation from the Ohio River.
- 1946 – In the 1946 KLM Douglas DC-3 Amsterdam accident, a Douglas DC-3 crashes while attempting to land at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands; all 26 passengers and crew on board are killed.
- 1944 – (13–14) Task Force 38 carrier aircraft raid Luzon, sinking the Japanese light cruiser Kiso, four destroyers, and seven merchant ships and destroying 84 Japanese aircraft in exchange for the loss of 25 U. S. planes.
- 1944 – RAF Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, his wife Dora, and eight aircrew are killed when Avro 685 York Mk. C.I, MW126, strikes ridge at the 6,300-foot (1,900 m) level in the French Alps between Belledonne and Seven Lakes Mountains, 30 miles (48 km) S of Grenoble, France, in a blizzard. Wreckage found by a villager in June 1945. Leigh-Mallory, originator of the "Big Wing" concept during the Battle of Britain, and younger brother of Everest mountaineer George Mallory, was en route to his new posting in Ceylon where he was to take over command of Allied air operations in South East Asia Command.
- 1942 – During the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, U. S. Navy aircraft from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) and U. S. Marine Corps aircraft from Henderson Field fatally damage the crippled Japanese battleship Hiei in Ironbottom Sound north of Guadalcanal in a series of air strikes during the day. Hiei sinks that evening.
- 1941 – The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from U 81 sustained on November 13.
- 1940 – 14-15 – 437 Luftwaffe aircraft make a massed air raid on Coventry. 380 civilians are killed and some 800 wounded.
- 1938 – A KLM DC-3 (registered PH-ARY) crashed on approach to Schiphol, Amsterdam in low visibility, killing 6 of the 19 on board.
- 1935 – Prototype Noorduyn Norseman was tested at Pointe aux Trembles, Quebec by WJ McDonough. This was the first all-Canadian designed bush aircraft.
- 1933 – Fred Haise, American astronaut, was born. Haise was the Lunar Module Pilot on the aborted Apollo 13 lunar mission 1970. He later flew five flights as the Commander of the space shuttle Enterprise, 1977, for the Approach and Landing Test Program at Edwards Air Force Base, and was selected to command the original STS-2 mission to rescue the Skylab space station 1979, but was cancelled due to the long delays in the Shuttle’s development as well as the break-up of the Skylab in mid-1979.
- 1932 – 14-18 – Amy Johnson breaks the UK-Cape Town speed record, shaving 11 hours off Mollison's record in March. She flies a de Havilland Puss Moth.
- 1930 – First flight of the Handley Page H.P.42
- 1930 – Edward White (Lt.Col, USAF), American astronaut, was born (d. 1967). On June 3, 1965, he became the first American to conduct a spacewalk. White was killed during the Apollo 1 training accident and posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart Medal.
- 1929 – U.S. Navy Naval Aircraft Factory PN-11, BuNo A-7527, delivered 26 October 1929, catches fire at NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C., and is destroyed after only 13:06 flight hours.
- 1919 – The American Railway Express Company hires a Handley Page V/1500 to carry 454 kg (1,000 lb) of parcels from New York to Chicago, but the attempt fails due to mechanical problems.
- 1910 – Eugene Ely takes off from a temporary platform erected over the bow of the light cruiser USS Birmingham, the first take-off from a ship.
References
- ^ Brulliard, Karin, and Joel Greenberg, "Israeli Aircraft Pound Gaza," The Washington Post, November 15, 2012, Page A1.
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