Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/August 28

August 28


 * 2009 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-128 at 23:59 EDT. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 17A: MPLM Leonardo & 6 person ISS crew.


 * 2008 – Zoom Airlines ceases operations due to financial struggles.


 * 2003 – CH-47D Chinook 88-0098 from F Company/159th Aviation Brigade written off in Iraq.


 * 1993 – 76 die in an airplane crash in Tajikistan. The plane, a Yak-40 crashed while taking off in Khorog for a flight to the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, 160 miles to northwest.


 * 1988 – Ramstein airshow disaster: Three of the ten Aermacchi MB-339PAN jets from the Italian Air Force display team Frecce Tricolori collide in mid-air in front of the audience while performing their 'pierced heart' formation. One aircraft crashes directly into the crowd. Sixty-seven spectators and all three pilots are killed and 346 seriously injured in the resulting explosion and fire.


 * 1988 – First flight of the Hoffmann H-40


 * 1980 – (28-31) The 3rd FAI World Rally Flying Championship is held in Aschaffenburg, West Germany. Individual winners are 1. Witold Świadek / Andrzej Korzeniowski (Poland), 2. Otto Höfling / Michael Amtmann (West Germany), 3. Luckerbauer / Meszaros (Austria). Team results are 1. Poland, 2. West Germany, 3. Austria.


 * 1972 – Prince William of Gloucester is killed in the crash of a Piper Cherokee Arrow during the Gordonwood Trophy race.


 * 1972 – Cpt Richard Richie becomes the first US Air Force ace of the Vietnam War.


 * 1972 – Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou transport aircraft registration A4-233 carrying three crew and 26 passengers crashed in a remote valley south of the town of Wau in Papua New Guinea. The wreckage of the aircraft was located on 31 August following an extensive search by military and civilian aircraft. Five of the passengers survived the crash but one of them died shortly after being rescued.


 * 1968 – McDonnell Douglas completes the 3,000th F-4 Phantom II.


 * 1966 – The Soviet Union announces that it is training North Vietnamese Air Force pilots.


 * 1963 – Two Boeing KC-135A-BN Stratotankers, 61-0319, c/n 18226, and 61-0322, c/n 18229, assigned with the 19th Bomb Wing, collide over the Atlantic between Bermuda and Nassau, all eleven crew aboard the two jets lost (6 on 0319 and 5 on 0322). Debris and oil slicks found ~750 miles ENE of Miami, Florida. Aircraft were returning to Homestead AFB, Florida after mission to refuel two Boeing B-47 Stratojets from Schilling AFB, Kansas (both of which landed safely) when contact with them was lost. Search suspended Monday night, 2 September 1963, when wreckage recovered by the Air Rescue Service is positively identified as being from the missing tankers.


 * 1962 – While on an intermediate stop during a ferry flight to Moscow for acceptance testing, Kamov Ka-22, 0I-01, rolled to the left and crashed inverted, killing the entire crew. The cause was found to be the rotor linkage, and further inspection found that two of the other three Ka-22s suffered from the same defect. Subsequently, in order to improve stability and control, a complex differential autopilot was installed. This sensed attitude and angular accelerations, and fed into the control system.


 * 1961 – In Operation Sageburner, a United States Navy McDonnell F4H-1F Phantom II fighter, Bu. No. 145307, flown by Lieutenants Huntington Hardisty and Earl De Esch, set a world speed record, averaging 1,452.777 kilometers per hour (902.714 miles per hour) over a 3-kilometer (1.864-mile) course while flying below 125 feet (38.1 m) at all times.


 * 1958 – First flight of the Beechcraft Queen Air, an American twin-engined light aircraft evolution of the Model 65 with a more modern swept tail and more powerful engines.


 * 1957 – A rocket-boosted English Electric Canberra sets a new world altitude record of 70,308 ft (21,430 m)


 * 1952 – A F6F Hellcat is loaded with explosives and flown as a remote-controlled drone against a railway bridge at Hungnam


 * 1947 – The Kvitbjørn disaster: A Norwegian Air Lines Short S.25 Sandringham 6 flying boat Kvitbjørn crashes into a mountain near Lødingsfjellet in Lødingen, Norway, killing all 35 people on board. It is the deadliest aviation accident in Norwegian history at the time.


 * 1945 – Consolidated Consolidated B-32 Dominator, 42-108528, of the 386th BS, 312th BG, crashed east of Amaro-O-Shima in the Ryukus after engine failure. 11 of 13 aboard survived. One of the last operational missions of World War II. Also, this date, Consolidated B-32 Dominator, 42-108544, written off when it lost an engine on takeoff from Yontan Airfield, Okinawa. Skidded off runway, exploded, and burned. 13 KIA


 * 1942 – No. 129 (fighter) Squadron was formed at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.


 * 1942 – (Overnight) A raid by 159 British bombers against Nuremberg, Germany, suffers an even higher loss rate of 14.5 percent as 23 aircraft fail to return, although the raid again is moderately successful. “Red Blob, ” Bomber Command’s first target indicator, is used to mark the target for the first time, glowing a distinctive red.


 * 1934 – Aug 28-Sept 16 – The fourth International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1934 in Warsaw, won by the Polish crew of Jerzy Bajan on the RWD-9 plane.


 * 1928 – Famed bush pilot Clennell (Punch) Dickins leaves on his 12-day survey of the eastern Arctic. He covers 6,336 km in 37 hours of flying; he often navigates by the sun.


 * 1923 – United States Army Air Service Lieutenant John Richter and Lowell Smith establish a new endurance record of 37 hours 15 min in an Airco DH.4, covering 3,293 miles (5,299 km). They are refueled fifteen times during the flight.


 * 1919 – The International Air Traffic Association (IATA) is formed at The Hague, Holland.


 * 1910 – Armand Dufaux pilots a Dufaux 4 biplane 66 km (41 mi) from St. Gingolph to Geneva at an altitude of around 150 m (500 ft), taking 56 min and 5 seconds for the crossing of Lake Geneva, the longest flight over “open water” at the time.


 * 1908 – The US Army accepts its first dirigible. It is 96 feet long, with a 20-hp Curtiss engine.