Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/August 2

August 2


 * 2013 – British Airways flight 902, an Airbus A380 (G-XLEA), operates the 1st fare paying flight for the new British Airways A380 fleet to Frankfurt. Departing London Heathrow at just after 7am.


 * 2010 – Todd Reichert of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies pilots a human-powered ornithopter, Snowbird, in Ontario, sustaining 19.3 seconds of flight, covering a distance of 145 metres (475 ft). The 42.6 kg (92.59 lb) craft has 32-metre- (105-foot-) span flapping wings.


 * 2009 – Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 9760, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, crashes into a mountain in good weather over Indonesia, killing all 13 passengers and 3 crew.


 * 2005 – Air France Flight 358, an Airbus A340-300, skids off a runway in Toronto, Ontario, while landing and catches fire; all 309 on board escape without fatalities or serious injuries, but the aircraft is completely destroyed by the fire.


 * 1991 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-43 at 11:01:59 am EDT. Mission highlights: TDRS deployment.


 * 1990 – (2-4) Iraq invades and occupies Kuwait. At the time, the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Independence (CV-62) is in the northern Arabian Sea; during the month, additional aircraft carriers will deploy to within striking range of Iraq and Kuwait, with USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) deploying to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and then the Red Sea, and USS Saratoga (CV-60) departing Norfolk, Virginia, to deploy to the Red Sea. USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) relieves Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea in mid-August.


 * 1990 – British Airways Flight 149 was a flight from London Heathrow Airport to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport, (the former international airport for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), via Kuwait City and Madras (now called Chennai) operated by British Airways Boeing 747-136 G-AWND. The flight never travelled on after stopping at Kuwait International Airport, near Kuwait City, several hours after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The aircraft operating the flight, its passengers and crew were captured by Iraqi forces and many of the passengers and crew were initially detained and later became part of the ‘Human Shield’. One passenger, a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family, was killed by the Iraqis, most of the remaining passengers were later freed, though at least one died during captivity, and the aircraft was destroyed, still on the airport, near its original landing gate. Allegations that the airline deliberately did not divert, so as to insert British covert operatives, form the basis of at least one court case.


 * 1985 – Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed Tristar, crashes on approach to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport because of wind shear from a sudden microburst thunderstorm. Of the 163 passengers and crew aboard, 27 survive.


 * 1984 – Vieques Air Link Flight 901A, a Britten-Norman Islander, crashes on take=off from Vieques Airport, Vieques, Puerto Rico, due to mixing of water and gas on left engine, killing eight passengers and its lone crew member, its pilot.


 * 1981 – Fuerza Aérea Panamena de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 300, FAP-205, c/n 284, departs Penonomé, Panama at 1140 hrs. for Coclecito, Panama, with two crew and Panama's President General Omar Torrijos and four of his aides aboard. Before reaching the destination the airplane flew into the side of Marta Mountain at an altitude of 3,400 ft. at ~1200 hrs., killing all seven.


 * 1979 – Cessna 501, N15NY. Thurman Munson, catcher for the New York Yankees, died in a crash of his personal jet while practicing touch-and-go landings at Akron-Canton Regional Airport.


 * 1966 – First flight of the Sukhoi Su-17 was 1 Jul 1969. . However, the Su-7IG, a converted Su-7BM,first flew on 2 Aug 1966 with V. S. Ilyushin at the controls, becoming the first Soviet variable geometry aircraft.


 * 1964 – US Navy aircraft are involved in skirmishes in the Gulf of Tonkin. F-8 Crusaders sink a North Vietnamese torpedo boat


 * 1960 – First flight of the Bennett Airtruck


 * 1947 – Star Dust (registration G-AGWH) was a British South American Airways (BSAA) Avro Lancastrian airliner which disappeared in mysterious circumstances on 2 August 1947 during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. A comprehensive search of a wide area (including what is now known to have been the crash site) discovered no wreckage, and the true fate of the aircraft and its passengers and crew remained a mystery for over fifty years. Speculation about the cause and nature of the disappearance of Star Dust included theories of international intrigue, intercorporate sabotage, or abduction by aliens.


 * 1945 – 855 B-29 Superfortresses drop 5,987,481 kg of bombs on Toyama, Tachikawa, and other cities in Japan. The attack on Toyama is an incendiary raid that destroys almost the entire city.


 * 1945 – A U. S. Navy PV-1 Ventura patrol plane discovers survivors of the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis (CA-35), the first indication that Indianapolis is even missing, 84 hours after she had been sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58 in the Philippine Sea. A large air-sea rescue operation lasts until August 8, but saves only 316 of her crew of 1,199.


 * 1943 – The 1943 Liberator crash at Whenuapai was an aircraft accident in New Zealand during World War II. The C-87 Liberator Express aircraft, owned by the USAAF and operated by United Airlines, was transferring Japanese men, women and children of the Consular Corps, to exchange for Allied POWs. On 2 August 1943, it took off from Whenuapai Aerodrome runway 04 at 2:20 am, with rain and fog conditions at minimums for departure, and quickly passed through low stratus. Captain Herschel Laughlin’s gyro horizon had inadvertently been left caged – while the instrument displayed level flight, the aircraft entered a steepening bank to the left. The crew detected the problem in a few seconds, but as the aircraft was straightening up and levelling out, it hit the ground at about 200 mph, bounced a few times and exploded. The third bounce threw its first officer, R. John Wisda, out through the canopy; he rolled end over end about 100 m through mud and reeds. A medic later found him trying to keep warm near a burning tyre. The major factors of the accident were the lack of a pre-flight checklist, and crew fatigue (126 flying hours in the last 26 days). The crash killed three of the five crew (United States nationals), and eleven of the twenty-five passengers (eight Japanese and three Thai nationals). Two additional passengers died later from injuries.


 * 1943 – (2-3) The final raid of the Battle of Hamburg, by 740 British bombers, fails when the bombers scatter their bombs widely. Thirty British aircraft do not return. Despite the enormnous damage it has inflicted, Operation Gomorrah has failed to completely destroy Hamburg.


 * 1943 – Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress, 41-2463, "Yankee Doodle", of the 19th Bomb Group, then to 394th Bomb Squadron, 5th Bomb Group, crashes on takeoff due mechanical failure at Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides, Bombardier Sgt. John P. Kruger and navigator Lt. Talbert H. Woolam are killed. Pilot was Gene Roddenberry, future creator of Star Trek. The airframe was stricken on 13 August 1943.


 * 1940 – As one of the components of Operation Hurry, the first of many operations in which Royal Air Force fighters fly off Allied aircraft carriers for service at Malta, twelve Fairey Swordfish from the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal make the first night raid on Italian soil in the early morning hours, attacking Cagliari in southern Sardinia. They inflict heavy damage on the airfield and on Italian seaplanes anchored in the harbor and drop naval mines into the harbor. Two Swordfish are lost. Nine accompanying Blackburn Skuas shoot down an Italian Cant Z.501. It is a diversionary attack to cover the carrier HMS Argus, which flies off 12 RAF Hawker Hurricanes to Malta from a point south of Sardinia later in the day.


 * 1929 – (2-10) The English aviatrix and ornithologist Mary Russell, Duchess of Bedford, her personal pilot C. D. Barnard, and mechanic Robert Little make a record-breaking flight in the Fokker F.VII Spider (G-EBTS) of 10000 mi from Lympne Airport in Lympne, England, to Karachi, then in the British Indian Empire, and back to Croydon Airport in South London, England, in eight days.


 * 1925 – The only Viking IV stationed at Ottawa was the British-built G-CYES and it was written off.


 * 1924 – One of the three surviving Douglas World Cruiser aircraft, the "Boston", 23-1231, c/n 147, loses oil pressure while flying west over the North Atlantic, has to alight on the open sea. Crew is rescued, but during an attempt to tow the float plane by the USS Richmond (CL-9), the aircraft capsizes in rough seas and has to be abandoned near the Faroe Islands.


 * 1923 – First flight of the Wright F2W


 * 1919 – A 1919 Caproni Ca.48 crash at Verona, Italy, during a flight from Venice to Taliedo, Milan, kills all on board (14, 15, or 17 people, according to different sources).


 * 1917 – Squadron Commander Edwin Dunning of the British Royal Naval Air Service becomes the first pilot to land an airplane on the deck of a moving ship when he puts a Sopwith Pup down on HMS Furious.


 * 1916 – (2-16) German Zeppelins raid southeast England. Lieutenant William Leefe-Robinson, Royal Flying Corps, shoots down Zeppelin SL 11 in a BE.2c.


 * 1916 – A Bristol Scout C from the Royal Navy seaplane carrier Vindex unsuccessfully attacks the German Zeppelin L 17. It is the first interception of an airship by a carrier-based aircraft.


 * 1915 – Building upon 1913 flying-off experiments aboard HMS Hermes, an aircraft takes off from a platform aboard a fully operational British aviation ship for the first time, when a Sopwith Baby equipped with wheeled floats takes off from HMS Campania.


 * 1911 – The first woman in the United States licensed as a qualified pilot is Harriet Quimby, a drama critic.


 * 1909 – The first flying machine purchased and put into service by a government is the Wright Flyer. The US Army accepts its first airplane and pays the Wrights $25,000, plus a $5,000 bonus, because the machine exceeded the speed requirement of 40 mph.