Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/August 8

August 8


 * 2011 – IrAero Flight 103, an Antonov An-24, overruns the runway after landing at Ignatyevo Airport, Blagoveshchensk; all 36 on board survive with 12 suffering injuries.


 * 2009 – Hudson River mid-air collision: N71 MC, a Piper PA-32R, and N401LH, a Eurocopter AS350 collide mid-air over New York. Both aircraft crash into the Hudson River, killing all three people on board the aircraft and all six people on board the helicopter.


 * 2007 – Virgin America began operations.


 * 2007 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavou STS-118 at 22:36:42 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 13A.1: S5 Truss & Spacehab-SM & ESP3. First use of SSPTS (Station-to-Shuttle Power Transfer System).


 * 2007 – An RAF Aérospatiale-Westland Puma HC.1, ZA934, 'BZ', of 33 Squadron, crashes in a wooded area of Hudswell Grange, W of Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, UK. Two RAF crew, pilot and aircraft commander Flt. Lt. David Oxer Hanson Sale, and crewman Sgt. Phillip Anthony "Taff" Burfoot died in the crash, while Army Pvt. Sean Tait, Royal Regiment of Scotland, died two days later in hospital. Nine others injured but survive.


 * 2006 – A UH-60 Black Hawk 86-24535 from 82nd AAC (MEDEVAC) attached to 3rd MAW crashes in Anbar, killing two crew members and injuring four.


 * 2004 – OH-58D(I) Kiowa 96-0015 made emergency landing north of Baghdad after being hit by RPG. Crew unhurt.


 * 2002 – Rico Linhas Aéreas Flight 4823, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasília, crashes on approach in a rainstorm; the aircraft breaks up into three pieces and catches fire; 23 of 31 on board perish.


 * 1998 – An Grumman F-14A-95-GR Tomcat, BuNo 160407, 'AC 105', of VF-32, based at NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, while on a routine training mission. Both crewmen eject and are rescued within 15 minutes, Navy officials in Norfolk, Virginia said. The F-14 was operating from the USS Enterprise.


 * 1993 – A Saab JAS 39 Gripen, 39-102, crashed on the central Stockholm island of Långholmen, near the Västerbron bridge, during a slow speed manoeuver during a display over the Stockholm Water Festival. Lars Rådeström, the same pilot as in the 1989 incident, ejected safely. Despite large crowds of onlookers, only one person on the ground was injured.3] This crash was, like the previous one, caused by a PIO.


 * 1989 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-28 at 8:37:00 am EDT. Mission highlights: Fourth classified DoD mission; Satellite Data System deployment.


 * 1986 – First flight of the British Aerospace EAP


 * 1985 – A USAF General Dynamics F-16A Block 15F Fighting Falcon, 81-0750, of the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron, crashed during a training mission in northwest Utah, killing the pilot. Crashed onto the Utah Test and Training Range killing pilot, First Lieutenant S. Brad Peale. The aircraft suffered a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).


 * 1985 – A USAF LTV A-7D Corsair II, 69‑6198, of the 4450th Tactical Group, lost power, caught fire and crashed into Midwest City, a suburb of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, pilot Maj. Dennis D. Nielson staying with aircraft as he attempted to steer it towards less-populous area before ejecting, but fighter impacted house, killing one, injuring one, one missing, said a United Press International report. Second victim found on 9 August. This unit was secretly operating Lockheed F-117 Nighthawks at this time.


 * 1982 – First flight of the Cessna 208 Caravan


 * 1967 – First flight of the Boeing 737-200


 * 1957 – Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50, a swept-wing, experimental high-altitude interceptor, the Ye-2 airframe modified to fit Dushkin S-155 rocket motor, with design work started in 1954, first flight in 1956. Programme terminated after crash of Ye-50/3 on this date. Test pilot N. A. Korovin, of GK NII VVS, is killed when the engine explodes, escape system fails.


 * 1955 – Internal explosion aboard Bell X-1A, 48-1384, while being carried aloft by Boeing B-29 mothership, forces NACA pilot Joseph Albert Walker to exit aircraft back into the Superfortress, which is then jettisoned due to the full fuel load it carries, the rocket-powered testcraft coming down on the Edwards AFB, California bombing range.


 * 1948 – FW ‘Casey’ Baldwin, the first Canadian to pilot an heavier-than-air flying machine, died at Neareagh, Nova Scotia.


 * 1948: Birth: Svetlana Savitskaya, cosmonaut


 * 1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36


 * 1945 – 245 B-29 s drop 1,296 tons (1,175,723 kg) of bombs on Yawata, Japan.


 * 1944 – First flight of the Junkers Ju 287 was on 16 Aug 1944.


 * 1943 – Axis bombers attack the American light cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) off Sant’Agata di Militello, Sicily, scoring no hits.


 * 1943 – (8-17) Allied aircraft of the Northwest African Air Force attack Axis forces evacuating Sicily across the Strait of Messina to mainland Italy in Operation Lehrgang. Wellington strategic bombers average 85 sorties nightly – Attacking evacuation beaches in Sicily until the night of August 13-14, then ports in mainland Italy – And medium bombers and fighter-bombers fly 1,170 sorties. Allied planes face no Axis air opposition but face heavy antiaircraft fire and succeed in sinking only a few vessels, never endangering the success of the Axis evacuation.


 * 1942 – U. S. Marines capture the partially completed Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal. They will rename it Henderson Field, and it will be the focal point of the six-month Guadalcanal campaign. Offshore, Rabaul-based Japanese aircraft damage a U. S. transport, which becomes a total loss.


 * 1942 – 1st Lt. Edward Joseph Peterson dies in hospital from injuries suffered in the crash this date of Lockheed F-4 Lightning, 41-2202, a reconnaissance variant of the P-38, when it suffers engine failure on take-off from Air Support Command Base, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Field is renamed Peterson Army Air Field on 3 March 1943, later Peterson Air Force Base on 1 March 1976.


 * 1942 – The sole Republic XP-47B Thunderbolt, 40-3051, operating out of the Republic plant at Farmingdale, New York, is lost when the pilot interrupted wheel retraction, leaving the tailwheel in the superchargers' exhaust gases. This set the tire alight which ignited the magnesium hub. When the burning unit retracted into the fuselage, it severed the tail unit control rods, forcing the pilot, Fillmore "Fil" Gilmer, a former naval aviator, to bail out with the airframe crashing in the waters of Long Island Sound. Loss of prototype went unpublicized at this early stage of the war. Nothing is ever found of the wreckage.


 * 1935 – First flight of the Morane-Saulnier M.S.406


 * 1934 – 8-9 – James Ayling and Leonard Reid make the first non-stop flight from Canada to England, in a de Havilland DH.84, taking 30 hours 50 min for the flight.


 * 1930 – End of the Challenge 1930 contest, won by Fritz Morzik..


 * 1929 – The Graf Zeppelin (LZ 127) begins its circumnavigation of the globe at Lakehurst, New Jersey.


 * 1924 – The U. S. Navy dirigible USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) docks with the airship tender USS Patoka (AO-9) while the latter is underway, showing that airships could operate from support ships far out to sea.


 * 1914 – A French aerial observer is injured by small-arms fire, becoming that nation's first casualty of air war.


 * 1910 – The first aircraft tricycle landing gear is installed on the US Army’s Wright airplane.


 * 1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flights at the Hunaudières racetrack at Le Mans, France. The Wright Flyer used for this and later flights had been shipped to Le Havre by Orville the previous year. It had been seriously damaged by custom officials when it arrived in France and uncrated. Wilbur spent the whole summer of 1908 rebuilding the machine and getting it into flying condition. Wilbur’s flights in this machine will have a profound effect on European aviation during the following months.


 * 1901 – Wilbur Wright achieves a flight of 389 feet (118.5 m) at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in the Wright 1901 glider.


 * 1709 – First person in flight: Bartolomeu de Gusmão in a balloon filled with heated air at the hall of the Casa da India in Lisbon. (However, this claim is not generally recognized by aviation historians outside the Portuguese speaking community, in particular the FAI.)