Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/February 11

February 11


 * 2010 – Click Mexicana Flight 7222, operated by Fokker 100 XA-SHJ suffered an undercarriage malfunction on approach to Quetzalcóatl International Airport, Nuevo Laredo. A low fly-past confirmed that both main gears had not deployed. The aircraft diverted to General Mariano Escobedo International Airport, Monterrey, where it was substantially damaged in the landing, having departed the runway and spun through 180°.


 * 2010 – An Italian Air Force General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon from 5th Fighter Wing crashed into the Adriatic Sea 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) from the coast near Ravenna at 1530 hrs. when he was training with another aircraft of the same unit. Pilot survived.


 * 2010 – Trigana Air Service Flight 168, operated by ATR-42-300F PK-YRP made a forced landing in a paddy field at Bone, Indonesia. Two people were seriously injured and the aircraft was written off.


 * 2009 – Two Grob G 115 Tutor aircraft collided above Porthcawl, South Wales killing four people. The aircraft took off from RAF St Athan shortly before. Among the dead were two female teenage cousins and two instructor pilots. See Porthcawl Mid-Air Collision.


 * 2008 – Adam Aircraft Industries (AAI), American aircraft manufacturer ceased operations.


 * 2008 – Death of Frank Piasecki, American engineer and helicopter aviation pioneer. Piasecki pioneered tandem rotor helicopter designs and created the compound helicopter concept of vectored thrust using a ducted propeller.


 * 2007 – A British C-130 Hercules is destroyed by coalition forces after being heavily damaged in a night landing in southern Iraq; two are injured. The aircraft was struck by two improvised explosive devices placed by insurgents, upon landing at a temporary runway in Maysan Province.


 * 2006 – Steve Fossett set the absolute world record for “distance without landing” by flying his GlobalFlyer from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, around the world eastbound, then upon returning to Florida continuing across the Atlantic a second time to land in Bournemouth, England. The official distance was 25,766 statute miles (41,467 km) and the duration was 76 hours 45 min.


 * 2002 – First flight of the Airbus A340-500, European long-range wide-body four engine jet airliner.


 * 2000 – Jacqueline Auriol, French aviatrix, dies (b. 1917). Auriol earned a military pilot license 1950 then qualified as one of the first female test pilots. She was among the first women to break the sound barrier and set five world speed records. Her exploits earned her the Harmon Trophy 1951 and aga1952.


 * 2000 – JetBlue commences operations out of New York’s JFK Airport.


 * 2000 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-99 at 12:43 EST (17:43 UTC). Mission highlights: Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.


 * 1997 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-82 at 3:55:17 am EST. Mission highlights: Tethered satellite reflight, lost due to broken tether.


 * 1995 – STS-63, NASA Space Shuttle Discovery, second mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried out the first rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia’s space station Mir, is back on earth.


 * 1993 – An Ethiopian man, Nebiu Demeke, hijacks Lufthansa Flight 592, an Airbus A310-300 with 103 other people on board, during a flight from Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He forces the aircraft to fly to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, where he surrenders to authorities without further incident. It is the first transatlantic hijacking since 1976.


 * 1992 – An F-16 jet crashes in residential district in the Netherlands. There are no fatalities.


 * 1991 – U. S. Air Force F-15 C Eagles of the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing use AIM-7 Sparrow missiles to shoot down two Iraqi helicopters.


 * 1988 – USMC McDonnell-Douglas AV-8B-4 Harrier II, BuNo 162071, c/n 512020/20, of VMA-331, crashes at Nellis AFB, Nevada, following engine flame-out.


 * 1987 – Following its privatization, British Airways shares begin trading on the London Stock Exchange.


 * 1986 – United completes its purchase of Pan Am’s Pacific division for $715 million and begins service to an additional 11 cities for a total of 13 cities in 10 Pacific Rim countries.


 * 1985 – Death of Benjamin L. Abruzzo, American hot air balloonist and businessman, Killed in the crash of his Cessna 421 near Albuquerque.


 * 1984 – Landed: Space shuttle Challenger STS-41-B at 12:15:55 UTC Kennedy Space Center. Mission highlights: Comsat deployments, first untethered spacewalk by Bruce McCandless II with Manned Maneuvering Unit; first landing at KSC; dry run of equipment for Solar Max rescue.


 * 1978 – Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314, a Boeing 737-200, from Edmonton crashes at Cranbrook Airport after thrust reversers did not fully stow following a rejected landing, killing 42 of the 48 people on board.


 * 1976 – Death of Alexander Martin Lippisch, German pioneer of aerodynamics. He made important contributions to the understanding of flying wings, delta wings and the ground effect. His most famous design is the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor.


 * 1970 – Launch of Osumi (or Ohsumi), first Japanese artificial satellite put into orbit.


 * 1969 – A Lockheed SP-2E Neptune, BuNo 131487, of a Navy Reserve unit based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, crashes in the Cleveland National Forest in the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange County, California, while on night training. Six crew KWF. The crew was serving two weeks of active duty at Naval Air Station Los Alamitos, 20 miles S of Los Angeles. The aircraft departed in the evening and headed for nearby MCAS El Toro for some night landing practice. The weather was somewhat cloudy and the rugged Santa Ana Mountains to the north were obscured. At 2023 hours local, a fighter jet flying over the area reported seeing a large fireball below him. The patrol plane was apparently executing a missed approach when its starboard wingtip struck the southern ridge of Harding Canyon. Aircraft cartwheels and disintegrates. KWF are Lt. Cmdr. Robert Frederick, pilot, 38, from White Bear, Minnesota; Lt. Cmdr. Beal Gordon Dolven Jr., co-pilot, 36, from Minneapolis; Lt. Cmdr. Oliver B. Walley, 34, from Menomonie, Wisconsin; Lt. John E. Surratt; Air Ordnanceman Walter R. Jacobson, 40, of St. Paul, Minnesota; Air Ordnanceman John Edward Hansen, 31, from Rochester, Minnesota; and Aviation Machinists Mate Harris R. Hendrickson, 47 of Minneapolis. Wings and tail of wreckage were removed, but much remains of the bomber in difficult, often near-vertical terrain.


 * 1965 – Operation Flaming Dart II begins as 99 U. S. Navy carrier aircraft attack enemy logistics and communications at Chanh Hoa barracks in southern North Vietnam near the Demilitarized Zone.


 * 1964 – US Navy select the Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II for replacing their Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.


 * 1964 – During an evening airpower demonstration, an Douglas B-26 Invader on a strafing pass over Range 52 at Eglin AFB, Florida, loses a wing as it pulls up at ~1945 hrs., with the loss of two crew, both assigned to the 1st Air Commando Wing, Hurlburt Field. KWF are pilot Capt. Herman S. Moore, 34, of 28 Palmetto Drive, Mary Esther, Florida, and navigator Capt. Lawrence L. Lively, 31, of 19 Azalea Drive, Mary Esther, Florida. Moore, originally of Livingston, Montana is survived by his widow, Nancy Lee Moore, and a stepson, John H. Duckworth, 9, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William N. Moore, 117 South 10th Street, Livingston. Mrs. Moore is a teacher in the Okaloosa County School system. Lively is survived by his widow, Joan R. Lively. The Invader was participating in a demonstration of the Special Air Warfare Center's counter insurgency capabilities, an activity that had been presented on average of twice each month for the past 21 months. This was the first such accident for SAWC during that period. The USAF subsequently grounds all combat B-26s on 8 April as the stress of operations now exceed the airframes' abilities. On Mark Engineering Company remanufactures 41 old airframes as one YB-26K and forty B-26Ks with new spars, larger engines and rudders, and new 1964 fiscal year serial numbers which see use in Southeast Asia, and which will be redesignated A-26As for political reasons.


 * 1960 – Birth of Richard Alan “Rick” Mastracchio, American engineer and NASA astronaut.


 * 1959 – A US meteorological balloon achieves a record height of 146,000 ft. carrying a special package of detectors sending information by radio signal to the ground.


 * 1958 – Ruth Carol Taylor becomes the first African American flight attendant in the United States after being hired by Mohawk Airlines.


 * 1958 – A USAF Boeing B-52D-70-BO Stratofortress, 56‑0610, c/n 17293, of the 28th Bomb Wing, on a training mission that had originated at Larson AFB near Moses Lake, Washington, crashes at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, during a landing attempt in a snowstorm, killing five aircrewmen and injuring six other persons. This was the first crash of a B-52 at Ellsworth.


 * 1956 – First flight of the Antonov An-8


 * 1954 – No. 1 Overseas Ferry Unit left St. Hubert Que with the first 14 Sabres for Squadrons in Europe led by S/L R. Middlemiss.


 * 1954 – Test pilot John R. Noll began tethered hovering flight tests of the McDonnell XV-1, US experimental compound helicopter, designated as a convertiplane.


 * 1953 – Birth of Stephen Douglas Thorne, American Naval officer and NASA astronaut candidate.


 * 1950 – A Twin-engine Beechcraft D-18 cargo air service aircraft flying from Dayton, Ohio to Albuquerque, New Mexico, crashed four miles (6 km) west of West Mesa Airport with a pilot and two AEC security guards aboard. Plane was making an approach to a landing strip when it encountered a cloud and broke off the approach. While circling around the mesa atop which the airstrip was located, it hit a steep slope in an upright position. Completely demolished by the ensuing impact and fire, killing all three men aboard, the classified cargo of 792 HE detonator units in 22 boxes was destroyed – salvaged from the wreckage. As there was no evidence of sabotage, and since none of the detonators appeared to be missing, the incident was not reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


 * 1949 – First flight of the CASA C-201 Alcotán (“Kestrel”), a Spanish twin-engine low-wing cantilever monoplane military transport aircraft.


 * 1946 – U. S. and British negotiators reach the Bermuda Agreement, the first bilateral agreement regulating air transport. The two countries agree to fix transatlantic air fares through the International Air Transport Association.


 * 1945 – First flight of the Consolidated Vultee XP-81, American single seat, long range escort fighter prototype that combined use of both a turbojet and a turboprop engines.


 * 1944 – Carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 strike Eniwetok.


 * 1944 – Supporting American operations in the Marshall Islands, carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 since January 29 have flown 6,232 sorties and dropped 1,156.6 tons (1,049,261 kg) of bombs, losing 22 aircraft in combat and 27 to other causes.


 * 1944 – A Wellington bomber of No.407 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, sank the German submarine U-283 in the North Atlantic.


 * 1942 – (11-13) 250 Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke Wulf Fw 190 fighters and 30 Messerschmitt Bf 110 night fighters participate in Operation Thunderbolt, the German Luftwaffe’s defense of the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as they make the “Channel Dash” (Operation Cerberus) from Brest, France, to Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel, Germany, via the English Channel and Strait of Dover. On February 12, six Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish – All of which are shot down; their commander, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde receives a posthumous Victoria Cross for the attack – and some Royal Air Force Coastal Command Beauforts attempt torpedo attacks, but score no hits.


 * 1941 – Death of Mario Visintini, first Regia Aeronautica WWII ace, crashing his Fiat CR42 on Mount Nefasit, Eritrea because of Storm. He was the top scoring pilot of all belligerent air forces in Eastern Africa (Africa Orientale) and the top biplane fighter ace of WW2.


 * 1939 – After cross-country speed flight, Lockheed XP-38 Lightning prototype, 37-457, c/n 022-2201, crashlands on Cold Stream Golf Course on approach to Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York when engines fail due to icing. Pilot Ben Kelsey survives. Attempts by authorities to shield "secret" design from local photographers fail miserably.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Bristol Type 146, a British single-seat, eight-gun fighter monoplane prototype.


 * 1935 – First Flight in the United States with a car slung underneath the fuselage takes place.


 * 1932 – First flight of the Couzinet 70, a French three-engined commercial monoplane.


 * 1920 – Birth of Daniel “Chappie” James Jr., American WWII, Korean and Vietnam War fighter pilot and first black American to reach the rank of four-star general.


 * 1914 – Distance record for balloons over land is set by H. Berliner, who flies 1,890 miles (c. 3,040 km) from Bitterfeldt, Germany to Kirgischano, Russia.


 * 1913 – Escuela de Aviación del Capitán Manuel Ávalos Prado is founded, it will become later Fuerza Aérea de Chile, (Chilean Air Force).


 * 1909 – An important pioneer in developing aviation in New Zealand, Vivian C. Walsh pilots a Howard-Wright biplane on what is generally considered the first flight in New Zealand by a powered airplane.


 * 1905 – Arthur Charles Hubert Latham accompanied his cousin, the balloonist Jacques Faure, on a night crossing of the English Channel (from London to Paris) in a gas balloon.


 * 1897 – Birth of Rudolf Stark, German WWI flying ace.


 * 1893 – Birth of Harold William Medlicott, British WWI flying ace.


 * 1888 – Birth of Lewis Hector “Hec” Ray, Canadian WWI flying ace.