Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/December 10

December 10


 * 2011 – Beechcraft 65-80 Queen Air crash occurred when a Beechcraft 65-80 Queen Air cargo plane crashed into the Felixberto Serrano Elementary School near Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, killing at least 14 people including the three crew members on board the aircraft, and injuring over 20 people. Approximately 50 houses in the residential area were set ablaze by the subsequent fire caused by the plane crash. The cause of the crash, as well as the identities of the victims is still unknown.


 * 2011 – A gun battle between Libya's new Libyan National Army and a powerful militia force takes place at Tripoli International Airport in Tripoli.


 * 2006 – A Bell 412SP air ambulance helicopter crashed near Cajon Pass, killing the three member crew.


 * 2005 – Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 with 110 people on board, crashes during landing in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. One hundred and seven people die.


 * 2004 – Two CT-114 Tutors from Canada's Snowbirds aerobatic team collide at the top of a loop during practice while training near Mossbank, Saskatchewan over Mossbank Airfield. Captain Miles Selby, pilot of '8' was killed instantly, but Captain Chuck Mallet was thrown clear of the wreckage of '9', released his lap belt and pulled his chute release, landing with minor injuries.


 * 2004 – The United States Federal Aviation Administration issues an Emergency Airworthiness Directive effectively grounding the entire U. S. fleet of Beechcraft T-34 Mentor aircraft. The AD is in response to fatal in-flight structural failure accidents during simulated aerial combat flights.


 * 1999 – A United States Air Force Lockheed C-130E Hercules, 63-7854, of 61st Airlift Squadron, 463d Airlift Group, crashes during landing at Ahmed Al Jaber air base, Kuwait City, Kuwait, killing three of the 94 people on board. Investigation report, released 31 March 2000, blamed crew complacency and failure to follow governing directives during approach to the runway, failing to monitor instruments, a critical function for night flying in reduced visibility.[401]


 * 1998 – Captain Michael VandenBos of the Snowbirds aerobatic team dies in a midair collision between two CT-114 Tutors during training near Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.


 * 1976 – Wings release triple album “Wings Across America”. (it’s a slow history day)


 * 1974 – Helios 1 is launched by the US and Germany, later to make the closest flyby of the Sun.


 * 1973 – RAF English Electric Lightning F.3, XP738, 'E', of 111 Squadron, is written off when the undercarriage collapses upon landing at RAF Wattisham, Suffolk. Stripped for spares and consigned to the dump there.


 * 1971 – President Richard M. Nixon warns North Vietnam that American bombing of North Vietnam would resume if North Vietnamese military action against South Vietnam increases as American forces are withdrawn from Vietnam.


 * 1967 – Singer Otis Redding and four members of his back-up band, The Bar-Kays, are among six people killed in the crash of a Beechcraft 18 into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin.


 * 1963 – The United States Air Force’s X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled by Robert McNamara.


 * 1963 – Test pilot Charles Chuck Yeager, out of Edwards AFB, California, zoom climbs Lockheed NF-104A Starfighter, 56-0762, modified with rocket engine in tail unit, to 106,300 feet (32,400 m), but aircraft enters flat spin when directional jets in nose run out of propellant, forcing him to eject. He suffers injuries when his helmet collides with the ejection seat. This mission was very loosely depicted in the film The Right Stuff. Aircraft was originally built as Lockheed F-104A-10-LO. See also flying accident during a test flight.


 * 1958 – National Airlines operates the very first domestic jet service in the United States, flying a Boeing 707 from Miami to New York’s Idlewild (now JFK).


 * 1957 – First flight of the Aermacchi MB-326


 * 1955 – First flight of the Ryan X-13 Vertijet.


 * 1946 – A Curtiss R5C-1 Commando military transport plane, BuNo 39528, c/n 26715/CU355, (ex-USAAF 42-3582), of VMR-152, crashed into Mount Rainier's South Tahoma Glacier, killing 32 U.S. Marines. Wreckage not found until July 1947


 * 1943 – Triple night kill by RCAF F/O R. D. Schultz flying in the 410 Squadrons Mosquito, against Do 217 s.


 * 1943 – The Allied airstrip at Cape Torokina on Bougainville officially opens.


 * 1941 – An SBD Dauntless dive bomber from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) piloted by Lieutenant Clarence E. Dickinson sinks the Japanese submarine I-70 northeast of Oahu. I-70 is the first Japanese submarine ever sunk by enemy forces and the first enemy warship sunk by the U. S. armed forces during World War II.


 * 1941 – After a courageous attack against Japanese ships off the Philippines, U. S. Army Air Force Captain Colin Kelly, a B-17 C Flying Fortress pilot, becomes one of the earliest American heroes of World War II when he stays at the controls of his stricken bomber long enough for his crew to escape and is killed when his plane explodes. He is mistakenly reported to have deliberately crashed his stricken plane into the Japanese battleship Haruna.


 * 1941 – In the Philippines, 54 Japanese naval bombers systematically destroy Cavite Navy Yard and a significant part of neighboring Cavite with precision bombing from 20,000 feet (6,096 m) during a two-hour attack. The submarine USS Sealion (SS-195) is sunk pierside at the Navy Yard, the first American submarine ever sunk by enemy action.


 * 1941 – French Indochina-based Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G3 M bombers (Allied reporting name “Nell”) sink the Royal Navy battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse in the South China Sea east of Malaya using torpedoes. They are the first capital ships to be sunk at sea by aircraft alone.


 * 1939 – Second production Sud-Est LeO H-470 flying boat written off when pilot alighted in error in shallow water on Lake Urbino, Corsica, airframe too badly damaged to permit repairs.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Lockheed Hudson


 * 1935 – A SABENA Savoia-Marchetti S.73 crashes near Tatsfield, Surrey due to pilot error, killing all 11 on board.


 * 1928 – First airmail flight between Edmonton and Winnipeg. A WWI pilot, fittingly named Punch Dickens, flew the Fokker Super Universal aircraft for Western Canada Airways. He landed in what is now the Edmonton City Centre Airport carrying mail from Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon and North Battleford. Postage for regular mail on that first flight cost five cents.


 * 1926 – Western Canada Airways was incorporated, with headquarters in Winnipeg.


 * 1919 – First England to Australia flight, by Keith Macpherson Smith and Ross Macpherson Smith, (plus mechanics Sergeant W. H. (Wally) Shiers and J. M. (Jim) Bennett) completed the journey from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Darwin in a Vickers Vimy. A distance of 11340 mi., after flying 135 hr. 55 min. at an average speed of 83 mph.


 * 1914 – HMS Ark Royal is completed. She is the first ship with an internal hangar enclosed by her hull, and the first with specially designed internal spaces to accommodate aviation fuel, lubricants, ordnance, and spares and machinery required for aircraft maintenance.