Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/December 8

December 8


 * 2009 – In the United Kingdom, Coventry Airport announces that it is to close with immediate effect due to its owners being wound up in the High Court.


 * 2009 – A Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Sikorsky HH-60H Seahawk Helicopter crashed and sank off the coast of Nagasaki. Two crewmembers were killed, while a third was rescued.


 * 2008 – San Diego F/A-18 crash was the crash of a United States Marine Corps (USMC) F/A-18 Hornet in a residential suburb of San Diego, California. The pilot, First Lieutenant Dan Neubauer (28) from VMFAT-101, was the only crewmember on board the two-seat aircraft; he ejected successfully, landing in a tree. The jet crashed into the University City residential area, destroying two houses and damaging a third. A total of 4 residents in one house, two women and two children, were killed.


 * 2006 – First flight of the Boeing X-53 Active Aeroelastic Wing.


 * 2005 – Southwest Airlines Flight 1248, a Boeing 737-700, slides off the runway during landing at Chicago Midway International Airport in Chicago in heavy snow. None of the people on board are injured, but the plane hits two automobiles on the ground, killing a six-year-old boy.


 * 1988 – Remscheid A-10 crash occurred when a United States Air Force attack jet, an A-10 Thunderbolt II crashed onto a residential area in the city of Remscheid, West Germany. The aircraft crashed into the upper floor of an apartment complex. In addition to the pilot, five people were killed. Fifty others were injured, including many seriously.


 * 1987 – Alianza Lima air disaster: A Peruvian Navy Fokker F27-400 M chartered by Peruvian football club Alianza Lima crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru. The aircraft was having mechanical difficulties and executed a flyby of the control tower so it could be visually confirmed that his landing gear was down and locked. Once proven it he affirmative, the aircraft went to go around to land, lost altitude and hit the water. Of the 44 people on board, only one of the pilots survived.


 * 1983 – Landed: Space shuttle Columbia STS-9 at 18:47:24 EDT (23:47:24 UTC) Edwards AFB, Runway 17. Mission highlights: First Spacelab mission.


 * 1972 – United Airlines Flight 553, a Boeing 737, crashes after aborting its landing attempt at Chicago Midway International Airport, killing 43 of 60 people on board and 2 people on the ground; among those killed was Dorothy Hunt, wife of Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt. The crash is the first fatal crash involving the 737-200.


 * 1972 – Seven members of the Eritrean Liberation Front attempt to hijack Ethiopian Airlines Flight 708, a Boeing 720-060 B with 87 other people on board, minutes after it departs Haile Selassie I International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Security guards on board open fire, killing six of them and mortally wounding the seventh. There are no other fatalities.


 * 1972 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 631 entered a heavy rainstorm on approach to Rawalpindi and crashed into a hillside. The airliner broke into three pieces. All 26 people aboard perished on the hillside.


 * 1969 – Olympic Airways Flight 954, a DC-6, crashed into Mt. Parnes while on approach to Athens-Ellinikon International Airport. All 90 passengers and crew on board are killed.


 * 1968 – Lunar Landing Training Vehicle No. 1 crashes at Ellington AFB, Texas. NASA Manned Spacecraft Center test pilot Joseph Algranti ejects safely.


 * 1967 – The first African-American NASA astronaut, Maj. Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., is killed in the crash of a Lockheed F-104D Starfighter, 57-1327, of the 6515th Organizational Maintenance Squadron, while practicing zoom landings with Maj. Harvey Royer at Edwards AFB, California. Lawrence was flying backseat on the mission as the instructor pilot for a flight test trainee learning the steep-descent glide technique intended for the cancelled Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar program. The pilot of the aircraft successfully ejected and survived the accident, but with major injuries. The F-104 they were flying came in too low and hit the runway. Royer ejected, but Lawrence was killed. He left behind a wife and one son.


 * 1965 – Introduction: McDonnell Douglas DC-9


 * 1964 – A United Lines Caravelle makes the first landing in the USA completely controlled by computer (automatic touchdown).


 * 1964 – USAF Convair B-58A-15-CF Hustler, 60-1116, of the 305th Bomb Wing, taxiing for take-off on icy taxiway at Bunker Hill AFB, Indiana, is blown off the pavement by exhaust of another departing Convair B-58 Hustler, strikes a concrete manhole box adjacent to the runway, landing gear collapses, burns. Navigator killed in failed ejection, two other crew okay. Four B43 nuclear bombs and either a W39 or W53 warhead are on board the weapons pod, but no explosion takes place and contamination is limited to crash site.]


 * 1963 – Lightning strikes the Pan American World Airways Boeing 707-121 Clipper Tradewind, operating as Pan Am Flight 214, igniting fuel vapor and causing an explosion which blows part of the left wing off the aircraft. The plane crashes near Elkton, Maryland, killing all 81 people on board. As a result of the tragedy, the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration orders the installation of lightning discharge wicks or static dischargers on all commercial jets flying inside U. S. airspace.


 * 1962 – British troops are airlifted to Borneo to quell uprisings in the region


 * 1962 – First flight of the Bell 206 (206)


 * 1949 – Muroc Army Airfield is renamed Edwards Air Force Base in honor of test pilot Glen Edwards.


 * 1945 – First flight of the Bell 47 prototype NC1 H


 * 1944 – In an attempt to stop Japanese air attacks on Saipan from staging through Iwo Jima, the U. S. Army Air Forces and U. S. Navy conduct a joint attack against Iwo Jima. After a morning fighter sweep by 28 P-38 Lightnings, 62 B-29 s and 102 B-24 s bomb the island, dropping 814 tons (738,456 kg) of bombs, after which U. S. Navy surface ships bombard Iwo Jima. All Iwo Jima airfields are operational by December 11, but Japanese attacks on Saipan come to a halt for 2½ weeks. Seventh Air Force B-24 s will continue to raid Iwo Jima at least once a day through February 15, 1945.


 * 1943 – Aircraft from the U. S. Navy carriers USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) and USS Monterey (CVL-26) strike Nauru in cooperation with a bombardment by surafce warships; eight or ten of the 12 Japanese planes on the island are destroyed.


 * 1941 – Randall “Duke” Cunningham, US Navy fighter pilot and Congressman, was born.


 * 1941 – The United States declares war on Japan.


 * 1941 – Japanese air attacks destroy half the aircraft of the United States Army Air Forces’ Far East Air Force in the Philippine Islands. Japanese aircraft also begin attacks on Hong Kong, Guam, and Wake Island.


 * 1940 – The New York City experiences its first blackout and anti-aircraft exercise, around the Brooklyn Navy Yard.


 * 1938 – The Arado Ar 196 V4, D-OVMB, the second Ar 196B, with a single main float and two outrigger floats, suffers failure of engine mounts during taxi testing at Travemünde for seaworthiness trials. Engine drops down towards centreline float, fire breaks out, crew of two with Helmut Schuster at the controls goes over the starboard side to avoid flames. This test sealed the fate of the center float Ar 196.


 * 1938 – Deutsche Werke launches Germany’s first aircraft carrier, Graf Zeppelin, at Kiel. She will never be completed.


 * 1936 – Spanish Republican pilots flying Soviet-made fighters shoot down a plane carrying International Red Cross envoy Georges Henny over northern Spain while Henny is carrying a report on the Paracuellos massacre of Nationalists by Republicans that he intends to present to the League of Nations. The crash badly injures Henny, preventing his report to the League, and fatally injures the French Paris Soir correspondent Louis Delaprée.


 * 1934 – Imperial Airways extends its airmail service to Australia.


 * 1927 – Prototype Curtiss XB-2 Condor, 26-211, assigned to Wright Field, Ohio in October 1927, crashes at Buffalo, New York after having logged only 58 hours, 55 minutes flying time.


 * 1903 – Second attempt by Charles Manly to fly Langley’s repaired full-sized aerodrome. As with the October 7 attempt the machine failed to fly tripping on its launch gear and somersaulting into the Potomac River nearly killing Manly. A surviving photograph captures the machine upended on its side as it falls off the houseboat. Langley himself was absent at this attempt but the machine’s failure to fly ended his government (i. e. U. S. Army) funded attempts at building a successful full sized man-carrying flying machine.