Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/December 7

December 7


 * 2020 - United States Air Force Test pilot Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to ever break the sound barrier, dies at age 97 in Los Angeles, California.


 * 2012 – A missile fired by an American unmanned aerial vehicle strikes a house near Mir Ali in North Waziristan, Pakistan, killing senior al-Qaeda leader Sheik Khalid Bin Abdel Rehman Al-Hussainan, also known as Abu-Zaid al Kuwaiti, while he is eating breakfast. The attack also mortally wounds his wife, and injures his daughter.


 * 2009 – SA Airlink Flight 8625, operated by Embraer ERJ 135 ZS-SJW, overruns the runway at George Airport, South Africa, arriving from Cape Town. The aircraft sustains substantial damage when it runs down a bank onto a road and may be declared a write-off.


 * 2005 – A man named Rigoberto Alpizar, intending on American Airlines Flight 924 in Miami, is killed in the jetway by air marshalls after he threatened to have a bomb in his backpack. He moved towards the backpack, refusing to comply with the officers’ orders to stop, and was shot. It was the first time since before 9/11 that an air marshall had used a firearm on duty.


 * 1999 – Asian Spirit Flight 100, a Let L-410 Turbolet, crashes into a mountain while on approach to Cauayan Airport, killing all 15 passengers and crew on board.


 * 1995 – The 1995 Air St. Martin Beech 1900 crash, near Belle-Anse, Haiti, kills all 20 on board.


 * 1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, just more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.


 * 1990 – An Alaskan Airlines Boeing 727 takes off from Seattle International Airport in visibility of only 500 ft, the lowest for any airliner takeoff in the US.


 * 1987 – Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, a BAe 146, is hijacked and deliberately crashed near Cayucos, California, by a disgruntled airline employee. All 43 people on board, including the hijacker, are killed.


 * 1986 – David Burke, an angry former employee of USAir, the parent company of Pacific Southwest Airlines, shoots both pilots of Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, a BAe 146, while it is cruising at 22000 ft over the central California coast. No longer under control, the plane pitches forward and accelerates, crashing into the ground at a speed of around 700 mph near Cayucos, California, killing all 43 people on board.


 * 1983 – In the Madrid Runway Disaster, an Iberia Airways 727 collides on a runway at Madrid-Barajas Airport with an Aviaco DC-9. 51 persons on the Iberia aircraft and all 42 people on board the Aviaco plane are killed in the accident.


 * 1981 – Introduction: Mitsubishi F-15J with Japan Air Self-Defense Force


 * 1980 – Pan Am's Boeing 747, the China Clipper, arrives from JFK International Airport in New York, to Beijing, after a stop in Tokyo. It marks the first time since 1949 that a commercial flight between the United States and mainland China is completed.


 * 1972 – Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. The crew take the photograph known as “The Blue Marble” as they leave the Earth.


 * 1977 – Lockheed U-2R, 68-10330, Article 052, second airframe of first R-model order, originally registered N809X, delivered to the 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing 25 July 1968. Testbed for Senior Lance and U.S. Navy EP-X trials. To 9th SRW in 1976. Crashed this date at RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, (Operating Area OH), pilot Capt. Robert Henderson killed when he crashes into the Met Office next to the control tower on take-off. Also killed are British duty forecaster Jack Flawn and four locally employed Cypriot staff, as well as 14 other injuries. Fires burn for three hours. The Met Office staff were the first to be killed on duty in peacetime since M.A. Giblett died on the R101 in October 1930.


 * 1966 – US Army Grumman OV-1B Mohawk, 62-5894, of the 122nd Aviation Company, on photo mission out of Fleigerhorst AAF, Hanau, Germany, is written off after engine failure then fire. Pilot Capt. Bill Ebert and crewman SP4 Ken Bakos eject. Aircraft crashes in a small forest outside the town of Volkartshain.


 * 1962 – First flight of the Aérospatiale Super Frelon.


 * 1956 – A Soviet Navy Ilyushin Il-28U of the 50th Guards Independent Reconnaissance Regiment (based in Primorsky Krai) crashes into a mountain. Crew of three dies.


 * 1956 – Avro Shackleton MR.3, WR970, first flown 2 September 1955, and operated by Avro for stall-warning development, crashes while on local flight out of Woodford Airport (WFD/EGCD), United Kingdom; spirals into ground near Foolow, killing all four crew.


 * 1955 – First prototype Martin XP6M-1 Seamaster, BuNo 138821, c/n XP-1, first flown July 14, 1955, disintegrates in flight at 5,000 feet (1,500 m) due to horizontal tail going to full up in control malfunction, subjecting airframe to 9 G stress as it began an outside loop, crashing into Potomac River near junction of St. Mary's River, killing four crew, pilot Navy Lieutenant Commander Utgoff, and Martin employees, Morris Bernhard, assistant pilot, Herbert Scudder, flight engineer, and H.B. Coulon, flight test engineer.


 * 1951 – The 6555th Guided Missile Squadron at Cape Canaveral, Florida, launches Martin B-61 Matador, GM-547. Lift-off and flight were normal, but the missile did not respond properly to guidance signals, and it finally went out of control and fell into the Atlantic 15 minutes and 20 seconds after launch. The flight covered a distance of 105 miles.


 * 1945 – New Zealand National Airways Corporation is founded with amalgamation of Union Airways, Air Travel and Cook Strait Airways.


 * 1944 – The sole Northrop JB-1A Bat, unofficially known as the "Thunderbug" due to the improvised General Electric B-1 turbojets' "peculiar squeal", a jet-propelled flying wing spanning 28 feet 4 inches (8.64 m) to carry 2,000 lb (910 kg) bombs in pods close to the engines, makes its first powered, but unmanned, flight from Santa Rosa Island, Eglin Field, Florida, launching from a pair of rails laid across the sand dunes. It climbs rapidly, stalls, and crashes 400 yards from the launch point.


 * 1944 – A major earthquake in Japan badly damages aircraft factories, including the Aichi factory, the Mitsubishi plant at Nagoya, and the Nakajima plant at Handa.


 * 1944 – Employing a new tactic in which torpedo bombers first drop a torpedo and then conduct a kamikaze suicide attack, Japanese aircraft sink a U. S. destroyer and destroyer-transport in Ormoc Bay. Kamikazes also severely damage two destroyers.


 * 1944 – The Convention on International Civil Aviation is signed in Chicago, Illinois.


 * 1942 – First flight of the Bell P-63 Kingcobra


 * 1941 – Canada declares war on Japan and immediate steps were taken to strengthen the Pacific Coast defenses.


 * 1941 – No. 419 (Bomber) Squadron was formed in England.


 * 1941 – First flight of the Nakajima A6 M2-N


 * 1941 – The Imperial Japanese Navy makes a devastatingly successful surprise attack on the US Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor. Six aircraft carriers launched a total of nearly 400 warplanes which claimed five US battleships and ten other vessels, and damaged three other battleships. The US declares war on Japan.


 * 1940 – First flight of the Fairey Barracuda prototype P1767.


 * 1936 – First Boeing Y1B-17, 36-149, c/n 1973, first flown 2 December, makes a rough landing at Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington, on third flight, when Army pilot Stanley Umstead touches down with locked brakes, airframe ends up on nose after short skid. Pilot had used heavy brake applications before take-off, then immediately retracted the overheated undercarriage instead of letting air stream cool it, whereupon the bi-metal brakes fused. Repaired, Flying Fortress departs for Wright Field on 11 January 1937.


 * 1928 – First flight of the de Havilland Hawk Moth


 * 1926 – A Stinson Detroiter being delivered to Canadian Air Express is the first airplane inspected (and passed) by the Federal Government.


 * 1922 – DH-4B, AS-63780, departs Rockwell Field, San Diego, California at 0905 hrs bound for Fort Huachuca, Arizona, piloted by 1st Lt. Charles L. Webber with Col. Francis C. Marshall aboard for an inspection trip of cavalry posts and camps. When plane never arrives, one of the largest man-hunts in Air Service history is mounted but when search is finally given up on 23 February 1923 nothing had been found. Wreckage is eventually discovered 12 May 1923 by a man hunting stray cattle in the mountains. Flight apparently hit Cuyamaca Peak just a few miles east of San Diego in fog within thirty minutes of departure.


 * 1913 – A Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2a, 235, flown by factory test pilot Lt. Norman Spratt, crashes at the Farnborough Aerodrome, pilot surviving.