Portal:Aviation/Today in aviation

2010 – An Israeli Air Force F-16I crashes in Makhtesh Ramon while on a training over the Negev desert in southern Israel, killing both the pilot and navigator of the plane.

2010 – In the 2010 Karachi Beechcraft 1900 crash a JS Air charter crashes almost immediately after takeoff, killing all 19 passengers and 2 crew on board.

2009 – N120FB, a Grumman Albatross operated by Albatross Adventures, crashes shortly after take-off from St. Lucie County International Airport, Fort Pierce, Florida, after suffering an engine failure. The aircraft was damaged beyond economic repair.

2003 - British Airways Concorde G-BOAG became the last Concorde to leave JFK by air. She flew to Seattle Boeing Field and retired to Museum of Flight, Seattle.

1979 – A Chinook helicopter of 450 Squadron successfully lifted a Lancaster aircraft from Gederich Ontario to Mount Hope, Ontario.

1959 – A small engine fire forces pilot Scott Crossfield to make an emergency landing on Rosamond Dry Lake, Edwards AFB, California, in North American X-15, 56-6671. Not designed to land with fuel on board, test craft comes down with a heavy load of propellants and breaks its back, grounding this particular X-15 for three months. Footage of this accident is later incorporated in The Outer Limits episode "The Premonition", first aired 9 January 1965.

1956 – F4U-7 Corsairs from the French aircraft carriers Arromanches and La Fayette bomb the aerodrome at Cairo. Israeli jets mistakenly attack the British sloop HMS Crane in the Gulf of Aqaba, and Crane shoots one down in self-defense.

1956 – The British and French bombing campaign against Egypt ends, with fixed-wing aircraft from the three British aircraft carriers alone having flown 1,300 sorties. Late in the day, the first British forces come ashore in Egypt as elements of the 3rd Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment land by parachute at El Gamil airfield and are reinforced by additional elements brought in by helicopter from the British aircraft carriers HMS Ocean and HMS Theseus.

1948 – A Boeing DB-17G Flying Fortress, 44-83678 returning to Eglin AFB, Florida from Fort Wayne, Indiana, crashes in woods SE of Auxiliary Field 2, Pierce Field, crashing and burning NE of the runway at Eglin main base early Friday. All five on board are KWF, including Lt. Col. Frederick W. Eley, 43, of Shalimar, Florida, staff judge advocate at Eglin for nearly three years - he was returning from his grandmother's funeral in Portland, Indiana; Maj. Bydie J. Nettles, 29, who lived in Shalimar, Florida but was originally from Pensacola, Florida, group adjutant for the 3203rd Maintenance and Supply section; Capt. Robert LeMar, 31, Ben's Lake, Eglin AFB, test pilot with the 3203rd; crew chief M/Sgt. Carl LeMieux, 31, of Milton, Florida; and Sgt. William E. Bazer, 36, assistant engineer, Destin, Florida. Bazer's wife was the Eglin base librarian.

1944 – U. S. Army Air Forces Twentieth Air Force B-29 s based at Calcutta, India, begin occasional attacks on drydock and ship repair facilities at Singapore.

1944 – (5–6) U. S. Navy Task Force 38 carrier aircraft raid Japanese bases on Luzon. On the first day, SB2 C Helldiver dive bombers and TBM Avenger torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-16) sink the Japanese heavy cruiser Nachi in Manila Bay, and U. S. Navy planes claim the destruction of 58 Japanese fighters over Clark and Mabalacat airfields. On the second day, a kamikaze damages Lexington. During the two days, U. S. Navy aircraft claim 439 Japanese aircraft destroyed, losing 25 U. S. aircraft in combat and 11 due to non-combat causes. The strikes cause a sharp reduction in Japanese air attacks on U. S. ships in Leyte Gulf.

1943 – 97 carrier aircraft from USS Saratoga (CV-3) and USS Princeton (CVL-23) carry out a destructive strike on a Japanese task force at Simpson Harbor, Rabaul, damaging the heavy cruisers Atago, Maya, Mogami, and Takao, the light cruisers Agano and Noshiro, and a destroyer for the loss of 10 aircraft. The U. S. Army Air Forces’ Fifth Air Force follows up with a strike by 27 B-24 Liberators escorted by 67 P-38 Lighntings on Rabaul town and its wharves. A counterstrike by 18 Japanese Nakajima B5 N (Allied reporting name “Kate”) torpedo bombers against the U. S. aircraft carriers mistakenly attacks a group of PT boats and a tank landing craft. The Japanese never risk heavy ships in the Solomon Islands again.

1940 – Four RAF squadrons are deployed to Greece to support the country against Italian attacks.

1940 – The U. S. Army Air Corps activates the Hawaiian Air Force, its first air force based outside the continental United States.

1938 – 5-7 – Non-stop flight by a pair of Vickers Wellesleys from Egypt to Darwin, Australia. This sets a new world distance record of 7,158 miles (11,520 km).

1934 – Pioneer Air Service aviator Col. Horace Meek Hickam, (1885–1934), dies when his Curtiss A-12 Shrike, 33-250, of the 60th Service Squadron, strikes an obstruction during night landing practice on the unlighted field at Fort Crockett, Texas, overturns. Hickam Field, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, named for him 21 May 1935.

1921 – Curtiss test pilot Bert Acosta wins the Pulitzer Trophy in a Curtiss CR-2 and establishes a new closed-circuit airspeed record of 284.36 km/h (176.7 mph).
1917 - Jacqueline Auriol, a French Aviator, is born.

1911 – Calbraith Rodgers completes the first coast-to-coast airplane flight across the USA in the Vin Fiz Flyer – Taking 49 days, with several crashes en route.

1910 – The Willows airship N° 3 City of Cardiff arrives after the first dirigible flight across the English Channel, flying from London 10 hours and 30 min.

1909 – The United States Army Wright Military Flyer, serial 1, piloted by Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm with 2nd Lieutenant Frederick E. Humphreys as passenger crashes into the ground at College Park Airport, Maryland, while executing a sharp right turn. The aircraft had lost altitude due to engine misfiring and the aircrew had not taken account of their proximity to the ground when banking the aircraft to the right. Both officers were unhurt but the aircraft required repairs.

1908 – Wilbur Wright receives the Grand Gold Medal of the Aéro Club of France for advances in aviation.

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