Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/April 3

April 3


 * 2009 – Quebec Service Aérien Canadair CL-415 C-GQBG makes a belly landing at Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport, Canada and suffers substantial damage.


 * 2008 – In the 2008 Suriname plane crash, an Antonov An-28 operated by Blue Wing Airlines crashes near Benzdorp in Suriname. All nineteen on board are killed.


 * 2008 – ATA Airlines ceased all operations due to unrecovering bankruptcy.


 * 2006 – USAF Lockheed C-5B Galaxy, 84-0059, of 436th Airlift Wing/512th Airlift Wing AF Reserve, crashes in a field one mile (1.6 km) short of the runway during landing approach to Dover AFB, Delaware. All 17 on board survive, although three are seriously injured. The cause was found to be aircrew error as the pilots and flight engineers did not properly configure, maneuver and power the aircraft during approach and landing.


 * 1996 – 1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash: A USAF Boeing CT-43, 73-1149 (c/n 20696), call sign IFO 21, of the 76th Airlift Squadron, 86th Airlift Wing, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on an official trade mission, crashed on approach to Dubrovnik Airport, Croatia, killing United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and 34 other people. The crash board findings, announced 7 June 1996, blamed the crash on a failure of command, aircrew error and an improperly designed instrument approach procedure.


 * 1985 – First Kamov V-80-01, prototype of Kamov Ka-50 "Hokum", '010', crashes, killing the pilot.


 * 1982 – First flight of the Airbus A310


 * 1981 – Pan Am founder Juan Trippe dies in Los Angeles.


 * 1980 – The prototype of the Bombardier Challenger 600 crashes in the Mojave Desert in California, killing its pilot.


 * 1970 – A USAF Boeing B-52D-60-BO Stratofortress, 55-089, c/n 464-17205, of the 28th Bomb Wing caught fire and crashed during landing at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, skidding into a brick storage building containing 25,000 gallons of jet fuel. Heroic efforts by crash crew save all nine on board, although one suffered broken limbs, and three firefighters were injured. One of the eight jet engines ran for forty minutes following crash.


 * 1968 – The RCAF’s Lockheed P2V Neptune flew its last operational mission. A few would later be activated when the Canadair Argus was grounded after cracks were discovered in some.


 * 1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration restricts American bombing of North Vietnam to targets south of the 19th Parallel.


 * 1965 – United States Air Force and U. S. Navy aircraft begin covert Operation Steel Tiger armed reconnaissance flights over southeastern Laos.


 * 1965 – The first jet-to-jet combat of the Vietnam War occurs. Although all American aircraft involved return safely, the North Vietnamese Air Force claims to have shot down a U. S. Navy Vought F-8 Crusader fighter and in future years celebrates April 3 as "North Vietnamese Air Force Day. "


 * 1965 – The U. S. Air Force mounts the first and largest U. S. air strike against the Thanh Hoa Railroad and Highway Bridge in North Vietnam, which the bridge survives. Despite 873 sorties against it over the next seven years, the bridge will not be destroyed until April 1972.


 * 1954 – Qantas introduces tourist-class services on its Kangaroo route from Sydney to London.


 * 1953 – BOAC introduces a weekly service to Tokyo by de Havilland Comet jet airliner.


 * 1952 – A United States Air Force Boeing B-29A-65-BN Superfortress, 44-62164, crashes at night. Suspected reason – Fuel line issues. The crew bailed out over a farmer's field 8 miles (13 km) N/5.5 miles W of Onaga, Kansas, United States. The captain died in the crash and one airman perished when his parachute failed to open. In addition, several cattle were killed. The surviving crew was fired at by the farmer, who believed them to be invading "ruskies".


 * 1951 – Sole prototype Hawker P.1081, converted from second prototype Hawker P.1052, VX279, with 5,000 lb (2,300 kg). s.t. Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet, first flown 19 June 1950, crashes this date at high speed on the South Downs, killing pilot Squadron Leader T. S. "Wimpy" Wade, DFC, AFC, Hawker's chief test pilot. He attempts ejection but his non-Martin-Baker seat fails. Cause was never fully established, but aircraft may have gone out of control during dive and exceeded limitations, witnesses reported hearing sonic boom as it came down. Australian interest in building type under license disappears, both they and the Royal Air Force acquiring Canadair Sabres to fill requirement for a high-speed fighter. Program abandoned.


 * 1948 – Alitalia recommences services to the United Kingdom


 * 1944 – American aircraft raid Wotje.


 * 1944 – The U. S. Army Forces’ Fifth Air Force resumes attacks on Japanese airfields around Hollandia on New Guinea with the heaviest raid yet, including nearly a hundred Douglas A-20 Havoc bombers. They encounter only sporadic Japanese resistance.


 * 1944 – In Operation Tungsten, a raid launched from the British aircraft carriers HMS Victorious, HMS Furious, HMS Emperor, HMS Fencer, HMS Pursuer, and HMS Searcher, 42 Fleet Air Arm Fairey Barracuda aircraft escorted by 40 fighters scores 14 hits with 1,600-lb (726-kg) bombs on the German battleship Tirpitz in Altenfjord, Norway, badly damaging her and killing 122 of her crew. Two Barracudas are lost.


 * 1942 – The US 303rd Bomb Group, activated at Pendleton Field, Oregon, on 3 February 1942, suffers its first fatal aircraft accident when three flying officers and five enlisted crew are killed in the crash of a Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress, 41-9053, six miles (10 km) N of Strevell, Idaho during a training mission.


 * 1941 – The British aircraft carrier HMS Argus (I49) flies off 12 Royal Air Force Hawker Hurricanes to Malta from a point south of Sardinia.


 * 1939 – First flight of the Gloster F.9/37 (or Gloster G.39), a British twin-engined design for a cannon-armed fighter.


 * 1933 – United States Navy airship USS Akron (ZRS-4), encounters severe weather and crashes into the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey. 73 passengers and crew, including Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, were killed. It did not have the Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawks deployed aboard when it was lost. The new Naval Airship Station at Sunnyvale, California is named Moffett Field in honour of the lost admiral.


 * 1933 – The Royal Air Force reinstates the squadron of nine to 12 planes as the basic organizational unit for its aircraft assigned to Royal Navy aircraft carriers, retaining the six-plane flight as the basic organizational unit only for aircraft assigned to operate from battleship and cruiser catapults.


 * 1933 – Two British aircraft, the Westland PV-3 and Westland PV-6 make the first flight over Mount Everest


 * 1926 – Gus Grissom, American astronaut, was born (d. 1967). Virgil Ivan Grissom, more widely known as Gus Grissom, was one of the original NASA Project Mercury astronauts and a United States Air Force pilot. He was the second American to fly in space. Grissom was killed along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee during a training exercise and pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at the Kennedy Space Center. He was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross and, posthumously, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.


 * 1904 – Gabriel Voisin successfully flies a modified Archdeacon glider at Berck sur Mer, Picardy. Voisin added a canard to the design. His longest flight on this day was 25 seconds.