Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/February 21

February 21


 * 2011 – As violence in the Libyan Civil War grows, Libyan Air Force warplanes and attack helicopters launch airstrikes on protesters, reportedly targeting a funeral procession and a group of protesters trying to reach a military base.


 * 2011 – Two senior Libyan Air Force pilots fly their Dassault Mirage F1 fighters to Malta and request political asylum after defying orders to bomb protesters. Two civilian helicopters also land in Malta after a flight from Libya, carrying seven passengers who claim to be French oil workers.


 * 2011 – A Royal Canadian Air Force Lockheed CC-130H Hercules is badly damaged by fire at Key West Naval Air Station in the United States.


 * 2010 – A Thomas Cook Airlines Boeing 757 begins gushing fuel out of its right wing after takeoff from Turin, Italy.


 * 2010 –OH-58 Kiowa helicopter crashes in northern Iraq killing the two pilots on board.


 * 2008 – Santa Bárbara Airlines Flight 518, an ATR 42-300, crashes shortly after taking off from Mérida, Venezuela, killing all 46 on board in the worst ever accident involving the ATR 42.


 * 2008 – Continental adds 27 aircraft to its firm order positions at Boeing, including eight new 777 s and 19 new 737NGs.


 * 2007 – Adam Air Flight 172, a Boeing 737-300 (PK-KKV), experiences a hard landing that results in a bent and cracked fuselage in Surabaya, Indonesia. This led to the grounding of all Adam Air 737 s, especially after the fatal crash of Flight 574 the previous month. All aboard survived with minor injuries.


 * 2007 – A UH-60 Black Hawk is hit by RPG and small arms fire north of Baghdad and makes a hard landing; all nine military personnel on board were rescued.


 * 2002 – A Russian Navy Antonov An-26, 07 Red, crashes one mile (1.5 km.) short of runway at Lakhta Airfield, near Archangelsk, northern Russia, during an emergency landing. Of the 20 people on board, 17 were killed.


 * 2001 – A General Atomics RQ1 Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) test fires a laser guided AGM114 Hellfire missile.


 * 1999 – Death of Eino Ilmari Juutilainen, fighter pilot of the Ilmavoimat (Finnish Air Force), and the top scoring non-German fighter pilot of all time. This makes him the top flying ace of the Finnish Air Force, leading all Finnish pilots in score against Soviet aircraft in WWII.


 * 1998 – A Sudan Air Force Antonov An-32 overshoots the runway and crashes into a river near Nasir, Sudan killing 27 of the 57 people on board.


 * 1995 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada, after taking off from South Korea, becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.


 * 1994 – Death of Johannes “Macky” Steinhoff, German Luftwaffe fighter ace of WWII, and later a senior West German air force officer and military commander of NATO.


 * 1991 – Iraqi forces shoot down a U. S. Army Bell OH-58 Kiowa helicopter as it returns from a border reconnaissance mission, and U. S. military forces lose three other helicopters and an F-16 fighter in non-combat crashes. In five weeks of air strikes against Iraq and Iraqi forces in Kuwait, Coalition aircraft have flown over 88,000 sorties, with the loss of 22 American and nine other aircraft, all to enemy ground fire.


 * 1986 – USAir Flight 499, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 with 23 people on board, slides off a snow-covered runway while landing at Erie International Airport in Erie County, Pennsylvania, injuring one person.


 * 1980 – Rockwell’s Sabreliner Model 80 sets a long-range flight record for its class, flying 2,653 miles from Boston, Mass., to Paris at 528 mph.


 * 1980 – A Beechcraft Super King Air, registered VH-AAV, crashes at Sydney Airport, killing all 13 on board.


 * 1979 – Former astronaut Neil Armstrong climbs to 50,000 feet in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in just over 12 min in a Gates Learjet Longhorn 28, breaking five world records for business jets.


 * 1973 – Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114, a Boeing 727, strays off course and is shot down by Israeli jets in the Sinai war zone, killing 108 of 113 people on board.


 * 1972 – The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.


 * 1971 – Death of James Knowles, Jr., American WWI flying ace.


 * 1971 – All Nippon Airways operates their first international flight, a 727 charter from Tokyo to Hong Kong.


 * 1970 – A bomb in the cargo hold of Swissair Flight 330, a Convair CV-990, detonates nine minutes after takeoff from Zurich International Airport, Switzerland; all 38 passengers and nine crew perish.


 * 1967 – McDonnell Aircraft completes the 2,000th F-4 Phantom II.


 * 1967 – A U.S. Navy Douglas A-4 Skyhawk from the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, newly returned from a tour off Vietnam, crashes into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Truxton Basnight near Virginia Beach, Virginia after the pilot ejects. The delta-winged attack jet cut a swath through trees and impacted the frame house, cartwheeled over the structure, throwing burning fuel into the home. Five civilians are injured, two critically.


 * 1964 – Birth of Twin Brothers Scott Joseph Kelly, American astronaut, and Mark Edward Kelly, American astronaut, U. S. Navy captain and naval aviator. First twin brothers in space.


 * 1964 – A Philippine Airlines Douglas DC-3 crashes on approach to Marawi City. The accident is blamed on pilot error.


 * 1962 – First flight of the Piasecki 16H, a US Experimental high-speed helicopter.


 * 1960 – Death of Edwin Arnold Clear, British WWI flying ace.


 * 1953 – First flight of the Brantly B-2, an American two-seat light helicopter.


 * 1952 – First flight of the Saab 210, a Swedish called-down testbed for the double-delta concept in the development of the Saab 35 Draken fighter.


 * 1951 – An English Electric Canberra becomes the first jet to make an un-refuelled crossing of the Atlantic, taking 4 hours 37 min.


 * 1947 – United States Army Air Force Boeing B-29-95-BW Superfortress, 45-21768, "Kee Bird", modified to F-13 reconnaissance role, of the 46th/72d Reconnaissance Squadrons, on mission out of Ladd Field, Alaska, runs out of fuel due to a navigational error and is forced to land in a remote area of northern Greenland. The aircrew is rescued unharmed 3 days later, but the plane is abandoned in place. The accident achieves continuing notability for the exceptionally fortuitous rescue and later for a well-publicized and ultimately disastrous 1994 recovery attempt.


 * 1945 – Birth of Matiur Rahman, Flight Lieutenant in the Pakistan Air Force.


 * 1945 – First flight of the Hawker Sea Fury, a British fighter aircraft developed for the Royal Navy by Hawker, last propeller-driven fighter to serve with the Royal Navy, it was also one of the fastest production single piston-engined aircraft ever built.


 * 1945 – aircraft carrier USS Saratoga is badly damaged by a kamikaze attack


 * 1944 – The British aircraft carrier HMS Chaser joins the escort of the Arctic convoy JW 57 bound from Loch Ewe, Scotland, to the Kola Inlet in the Soviet Union. It is the first time an aircraft carrier has escorted an Arctic convoy since February 1943. By the time Chaser returns to Scapa Flow on March 9 after escorting the returning Convoy RA 57, her aircraft have sunk or assisted in the sinking of three German submarines, with only one merchant ship lost.


 * 1942 – Air Marshal Arthur T. Harris assumes command of Royal Air Force Bomber Command. Known to the press as “Bomber” Harris, he will command Bomber Command for the remainder of World War II.


 * 1941 – The co-inventor of insulin, Canadian Nobel laureate Sir Fredrick Banting was killed in a war-mission flight in Newfoundland.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Miles Monarch, a British, light, touring aeroplane, Single-engine, three-seat, cabin monoplane with a fixed, tail-wheel undercarriage.


 * 1938 – Death of Carlos de Haya González de Ubieta, his Fiat CR-32 crashing in mid air with a Republican Spanish Polikarpov I-15 during the Spanish war.


 * 1935 – Sisters Jane and Elizabeth Du Bois, daughters of the American consul at Naples, Italy, Coert du Bois, force open the door of a Hillman Airways de Havilland Dragon Rapide airliner in flight and jump to their deaths. Both women had been engaged to be married to pilots killed in the crash of a Royal Air Force flying boat off Sicily on February 15.


 * 1933 – Death of Alférez Alfredo Rodríguez Ballón, Peruvian raid pilot, crashing his Douglas O-38-P during Peruvian-Colombia war.


 * 1930 – Death of Henrich Claudius Kroll, German WWI fighter ace.


 * 1922 – U.S. Army semi-rigid (blimp with a keel) Roma, bought from Italy, formerly T34, suffers control box failure at stern in flight, nosed into the ground, struck power lines at Army supply base, Norfolk, Virginia, and burst into flames, killing 34 of 45 on board, including Capt. Dale Mabry, its commander. This would remain the worst American aviation accident until the loss of the USS Akron in 1933. Accident spurs American lighter-than-air operations to switch to helium, less buoyant than hydrogen, but non-inflammable. Dale Mabry Municipal Airport in Tallahassee, Florida, that city's first airport, was named after Mabry, a Tallahassee native.


 * 1922 – U.S. Marine Corps Naval Aircraft Factory F-5-L, A-3591, of VS-1M, crashed during a night flight.


 * 1921 – Birth of Franz Schiess, WWII German fighter ace.


 * 1920 – Birth of Robert Samuel Johnson, American WWII flying ace.


 * 1920 – Death of Croye Rothes Pithey, South African WWI flying ace, Bomber pilot and Balloon buster, killed in a crash, flying a Bristol Fighter.


 * 1919 – The prototype of the first US-designed fighter to enter large-scale production, the Thomas-Morse MB-3 (to be made by Boeing), makes its maiden flight.


 * 1917 – Birth of Otto “Bruno” Kittel, WWII German Luftwaffe flying ace.


 * 1916 – Zeppelin LZ47 (LZ77) is attacked and destroyed during a raid in the Battle of Verdun.


 * 1916 – Birth of Fritz Wendel, German Messerschmitt test pilot during WWII.


 * 1914 – Birth of Eino Ilmari Juutilainen, fighter pilot of the Ilmavoimat (Finnish Air Force), and the top scoring non-German fighter pilot of all time. This makes him the top flying ace of the Finnish Air Force, leading all Finnish pilots in score against Soviet aircraft in WWII.


 * 1911 – A new 1910 Wright Type B Flyer owned by Collier’s magazine publisher Robert F. Collier, arrives at San Antonio, Texas on rent to the U. S. Army for $1.00 per month to supplement the aging Wright biplane first accepted on August 2, 1909.


 * 1910 – Birth of Group Captain Sir Douglas Robert Steuart ‘Dogsbody’ Bader, WWII Royal Air Force legless fighter ace.


 * 1906 – Birth of Moye Wicks Stephens, American aviation pioneer, businessman and co-founder of Northrop Aircraft, Inc.


 * 1895 – Birth of Leslie Jacob “Rummy” Rummell, American WWI flying ace.


 * 1895 – Birth of Friedrich “Fritz” Friedrichs, German WWI fighter ace.


 * 1893 – Birth of Owen Morgan Baldwin, British WWI fighter ace.


 * 1893 – Birth of Friedrich Manschott, German WWI flying ace.


 * 1892 – Birth of Edmund Leonard Zink, British WWI flying ace.


 * 1889 – Birth of Victor François Marie Alexis Regnier, French WWI flying ace who served in WWII.