Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/December 26

December 26


 * 2005 – At around 6 PM local time, a Piper Aztec, Registered N444DA, crashed in shallow water off the coast of the island of South Caicos, Turks and Caicos Islands. Its destination was Providenciales International Airport. All 4 on board (1 pilot 3 passengers) died.


 * 2005 – An AH-64D Apache 03-5375 from 1–4th Aviation Regiment collides with another Apache near Baghdad, both crewmembers are killed. Second AH-64 wasn’t destroyed.


 * 1989 – United Express Flight 2415 operated by a BAe Jetstream 31 N410UE of North Pacific Airlines was a commuter flight in the United States from Yakima, Washington to Pasco, Washington. The aircraft was approaching Tri-Cities Airport at around 22:30. The crew executed an excessively steep and unstabilized ILS approach. That approach, along with improper air traffic control commands and aircraft icing, caused the aircraft to stall and crash short of the runway. Both crew members and all four passengers were killed.


 * 1989 – First flight of the Hongdu N-5


 * 1982 – First flight of the Antonov An-124 (“Condor”)


 * 1980 – Aeroflot puts the Ilyushin Il-86 into service on its Moscow-Tashkent route.


 * 1975 – Introduction: Tupolev TU-144


 * 1972 – 117 B-52 Stratofortresses attack Hanoi in Operation Linebacker II, the largest air assault in the Vietnam War to this time.


 * 1971 – (26–30) The United States conducts Operation Proud Deep Alpha, which consists of air strikes in three provinces of North Vietnam south of the 20th Parallel.


 * 1968 – Two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine attack El Al Flight 253, a Boeing 707, with a submachine gun and hand grenades as it prepares to depart Athens, Greece, killing one passenger and seriously wounding a flight attendant before being arrested.


 * 1967 – The Soviet Union commissions its first helicopter carrier, Moskva.


 * 1965 – American air strikes in South Vietnam and Laos resume.


 * 1961 – The first missile squadron of the RCAF, No.446 Surface/Air Missile Squadron was formed in North Bay.


 * 1956 – First flight of the Convair F-106 Delta Dart


 * 1952 – Wisconsin Central Airlines changes its name to North Central Airlines, and moves its headquarters from Clintonville, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, Minnesota.


 * 1948 – I. V. Fedorov becomes the first Soviet pilot to break the sound barrier. He achieves the necessary speed by diving his Lavochkin La-176 jet, powered by a Rolls-Royce Nene engine, at full throttle.


 * 1944 – RCAF provided 61 Halifax heavy bombers in a 270-plane raid on St. Vith, France.


 * 1943 – 70 to 80 Japanese Rabaul-based aircraft attack U. S. ships supporting the day’s U. S. landing at Cape Gloucester, sinking a destroyer and damaging two others. Minor raids follow on the next two days.


 * 1943 – (26-27) Japanese Rabaul-based aircraft raid U. S. forces off Arawe.


 * 1939 – The first RAAF squadrons to join the war arrive in Britain


 * 1935 – General Rodolfo Graziani requests permission from Benito Mussolini to use poison gas against Ethiopian forces during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. He receives it, and during the last few days of December Italian aircraft begin dropping mustard gas on Ethiopian troops around the Takkaze River and on the village of Jijiga. Italian planes will drop poison gas for the remainder of the war, and continue to use it against Ethiopian guerrillas after the war ends.