Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/January 24

January 24


 * 2013 – Syrian Air Force jets bomb rebel-held areas in Darayya and Moadamiya, Syria, and heavy fighting takes place near Damascus International Airport over control of the airport road.


 * 2011 – The 2011 Domodedovo Airport bombing was a suicide attack in the international arrival hall of Moscow’s busiest airport, Domodedovo Airport. The bombing killed at least 37 people and injured some 173, including 115 who had to be hospitalised.


 * 2011 – Etihad Airways Flight 19, operated by Airbus A340-600 A6-EHH was escorted into Stansted Airport, United Kingdom by two Royal Air Force Typhoon aircraft from RAF Coningsby. The flight originated at Abu Dhabi International Airport and was bound for London Heathrow Airport when it was diverted due to an unruly passenger. The passenger was arrested after the aircraft had landed.


 * 2010 – Taban Air Flight 6437 crashed on landing at Mashhad International Airport Iran. All 170 people on board escape from the burning aircraft.


 * 2010 – A Finnish Air Force McDonnell-Douglas F-18 Hornet crashed in the south of the country. The fighter crashed in Juuapajoki, north of the southern city of Tampere at about 11:50 local time. The two pilots, who were on a routine training flight, ejected safely and were uninjured.


 * 2007 – Air West Flight 612 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Air West between Khartoum, Sudan and Al-Fashir. With 103 people on board, the flight, operated by a Boeing 737, was hijacked shortly after takeoff by a male individual. The plane landed safely at N’Djamena, Chad, where the hijacker surrendered.


 * 2007 – Ecuadorian Defence Minister Guadalupe Larriva, her 17-year-old daughter and five army officers are killed when two Aérospatiale SA.342L Gazelle military helicopters, EE-343 and EE-360, of Grupo Aéreo 43, collide near Manta Air Base at 2019 hrs. during night training.


 * 2003 – Department of Homeland Security created.


 * 2003 – Death of Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout, American early aviator, first Woman to set the first non-refueling endurance record for women.


 * 1991 – Iraqi ground fire shoots down another RAF Tornado, over Basrah, Iraq. Flying an F-15 C Eagle, Royal Saudi Air Force Captain Ayedh al-Shamrani, using AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, shoots down two Iraqi Air Force Mirage F1 jets as they approach British Royal Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. U. S. Navy aircraft attack Iraqi Navy ships; A-6 Es sink a Zhuk-class patrol boat and Spasilac-class minelayer and cause a minesweeper taking evasive action to strike an Iraqi mine and sink, and a force of A-6 Es and F/A-18 Hornets hit four ships in an attack on Umm Qasr naval base. U. S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell announces that during the first week of air attacks on Iraq, Coalition air forces have flown more than 10,000 sorties, knocked out 61 of Iraq’s 66 airfields, and shot down 19 Iraqi aircraft in air-to-air-combat, losing 16 of their own number – All to ground fire.


 * 1991 – CF-18's flew their first mission over Iraq.


 * 1991 – LTV A-7E Corsair II, BuNo 158830, 'AC 403', of VA-72 has the dubious distinction of being the last of the type in US Navy service to need a barricade landing aboard a carrier when the nose gear was damaged on catapult launch from the CV67 USS John F. Kennedy, at start of mission 12.41 against a target in western Iraq, losing a tire of the front mount on his cat shot. Pilot, Lt. Tom Dostie succeeds in landing in the barricade also known as the net or 5th wire. Since the A-7 type was about to be retired, airframe is stripped for parts and buried at sea 25 January with full military honors, but refuses to sink due to fuel bags in the wings were not salvageable and not removed. Marines aboard CV67 JFK used it for target practice (Video of Lt. Dostie's catching the net as well as the Marines using it for target practice can be seen on linked video. At 17:00 mins into video it shows Lt. Dostie landing in the net and then later on in the video compilation it shows the Marines shooting at and sinking  403 with 50 cals after it's craned off the port side.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNOyd-_W_uU


 * 1990 – Launch of The Hiten Spacecraft, English name 'Celestial Maiden' and known before launch as MUSES-A (Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft A), Japanese first lunar probe.


 * 1986 – Voyager 2, NASA space probe, passes within 81,500 km (50,600 mi) of Uranus.


 * 1986 – The American spacecraft Voyager 2 makes its closest approach to Uranus, passing within 50,600 miles.


 * 1985 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-51-C at 9:50:00 UTC. Mission highlights: First classified Department of Defense (DoD) mission; Magnum satellite deployment.


 * 1978 – Soviet satellite Kosmos 954, with a nuclear reactor on board, burns up in Earth’s atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada’s Northwest Territories. Only 1% is recovered.


 * 1977 – Death of Andrew Henry Humphrey GCB, OBE, DFC, AFC, RAF, British WWII pilot and Marshal of the Royal Air Force, who set some records with the English Electric Canberrea B2 ‘Aries IV’.


 * 1975 – Salyut 3, Soviet space station, is back on earth.


 * 1975 – First flight of the Eurocopter AS365 Dauphin (Aérospatiale SA-365 C ‘Dauphin’ 2), a medium-weight multipurpose helicopter.


 * 1974 – Togolese Air Force Douglas C-47 Skytrain, 5V-MAG, crashes during approach near the village of Sarakawa, northern Togo, killing several high-ranking military personnel. The President of Togo, Gnassingbé Eyadéma (1935–2005) is the sole survivor.[360]


 * 1971 – Death of Ferdinand von Hiddessen, German WWI pilot and politician, first German to bomb Paris in WWI.


 * 1966 – Operation Masher, later renamed Operation White Wing, a helicopter and ground assault by the U. S. Army's First Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and South Vietnamese Army and South Korean Army units, begins against North Vietnamese Army forces in Binh Dinh Province, South Vietnam. The operation concludes on March 6.


 * 1966 – Air India Flight 101, a Boeing 707-437, crashes into the south west face of Mont Blanc in France; all 106 passengers and 11 crew are killed. Sixteen years earlier Air India Flight 245 had crashed in almost exactly the same spot.


 * 1966 – First flight of the Learjet 24, an American six to eight seat (two crew and four to six passengers) twin-engined, high speed business jet.


 * 1963 – A USAF Boeing B-52G Stratofortress on a training mission out of Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, lost its vertical stabilizer due to buffeting during low-level flight, and crashed on the west side of Elephant Mountain near Greenville, Maine. Of the nine crewmen aboard, two survived the crash.


 * 1962 – Two US Navy F-4 Phantoms are seconded to the US Air Force as the air force plans to adopt the type.


 * 1961 – First flight of the Convair 990 Coronado, an American narrowbody jet airliner, “stretched” version of their earlier Convair 880.


 * 1961 – The 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash: A United States Air Force Boeing B-52G Stratofortress carrying two Mark 39 thermonuclear bombs breaks up in mid-air over Greensboro, North Carolina, and crashes, killing three of its eight-man crew. The bombs do not arm themselves and are recovered.


 * 1957 – Death of Georg Weiner, German WWI flying ace, author of children’s books, probably best remembered for the creation of "Biggles", the fictional WWI hero. He also was a High-ranking officer in WWII.


 * 1952 – Birth of William Francis Readdy, USN Test pilot and NASA Astronaut.


 * 1952 – Grumman SA-16A Albatross, 51-001, c/n G-74, of the 580th Air Resupply Squadron (described as a Central Intelligence Agency air unit), on cross-country flight from Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, to San Diego, California, suffers failure of port engine over Death Valley, crew of six successfully bails out at ~1830 hrs. with no injuries, walks S some 14 miles to Furnace Creek, California where they are picked up the following day by an SA-16 from the 42nd Air Rescue Squadron, March AFB, California. The abandoned SA-16 crashes into Towne Summit mountain ridge of the Panamint Range W of Stovepipe Wells with starboard engine still running. Wreckage is still there.


 * 1950 – First flight of the Nord 1601, a French aerodynamic research aircraft designed to investigate the aerodynamics of swept wings and related high-lift devices.


 * 1950 – First flight of the North American YF-93, an American jet fighter prototype, development of the F-86 Sabre.


 * 1945 – Twentieth Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortresses bomb Iwo Jima.


 * 1944 – German raids of 15, 43, and 52 aircraft strike Allied ships off Anzio, damaging an American destroyer and minesweeper and sinking a British hospital ship.


 * 1943 – (24-25) German aircraft attack Convoy JW-52 while it is en route the Kola Inlet in the Soviet Union via the Barents Sea but cause no damage.


 * 1942 – The Japanese aircraft carriers Hiryū and Sōryū begin strikes on Ambon.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Armstrong Whitworth Ensign, a British 40 seat four-engine airliner.


 * 1936 – Prototype Junkers Ju 87 V1, Werk Nr. 4921, fitted with a pair of vertical fins, suffers tail section oscillation during medium-angle test dive, loses starboard fin during attempted recovery, goes into inverted spin, crashes at Dessau, Germany. Wilhelm ‘Willy’ Neuenhofen, German WWI fighter ace, Junker’s Chief test pilot, was killed


 * 1932 – French pilots Paul Codos and Henri Robida land in Paris after flying from Hanoi in French Indochina in a record time of 3 days 4 hours.


 * 1929 – Surplus Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a, (original serial unknown), presented to Aviación Naval (Argentine Naval arm), E-11/AC-21, written-off in crash landing at Campo Sarmiento, Base Naval Puerto Belgrano, Argentina when pilot Alferez de Fragata Alberto Sautu Riestra approaches field too flat and lands short, collapsing undercarriage. Pilot uninjured. As the airframe was an obsolescent one-only on strength design, with no supporting plans or parts, it is scrapped.


 * 1929 – First flight of the Blériot 111, a French single engine, low wing monoplane transport prototype.


 * 1925 – Total eclipse of the sun photographed near Toronto from Avro 504 flown by F/L G. E. Brookes and F/O A. L. Moore. Photos published in Toronto Daily Star.


 * 1920 – First aircraft flight across the Sahara Desert is flown by French Joseph Vuillemin of the Aéronautique Militaire.


 * 1920 – First Canadian private pilot’s license was issued to James Stanley Scott, Ottawa, Ontario.


 * 1919 – Army Air Service pilot first Lt. Temple M. Joyce makes 300 consecutive loops in a Morane fighter at Issoudun, France.


 * 1919 – Death of Cecil Frederick King, British WWI fighter ace, killed in a midair collision while serving as a combat instructor.


 * 1918 – Death of Harry Gosford Reeves, British WWI fighter ace, killed in a crash while performing an engine test on a Nieuport 27.


 * 1917 – Death of Leopold Rudolf Reimann, German WWI flying ace, killed in a flying accident at Jastaschule near Valenciennes when the wings of his Albatros D.III collapsed.


 * 1913 – Death of Charles de Nié Port (Nieuport), French aircraft designer and pilot, co-founder with his brother Edouard of the eponymous Nieuport aircraft manufacturing company, Société Anonyme Des Établissements Nieuport in a flying accident at Étampes in France, when their wing-warping device failed.


 * 1913 – Swiss pilot Oskar Bider reaches 11,483 feet when he flies over the Pyrénées from Pau to Madrid in his Blériot XI monoplane.


 * 1900 – Birth of Lowell R. Bayles, American air racer.


 * 1899 – Birth of Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg, American pilot, High-ranking officer in WWII, U. S. Air Force general, second Chief of Staff and second Director of Central Intelligence.


 * 1897 – Birth of Malcolm Plaw MacLeod, Canadian WWI flying ace who also served during WWII.


 * 1897 – Birth of Eric Bourne Coulter Betts, Irish WWI flying ace.


 * 1896 – Birth of George Owen Johnson, Canadian WWI flying ace, raid pilot who remained in the RCAF until the end of WWII.


 * 1895 – Birth of Richard Michael Trevethan, American born British WWI flying ace.


 * 1895 – Birth of Gilbert Ware Murlis Green, British WWI flying ace who served on many theaters, commanded two of the original night fighter squadrons and shot down the first German airplane at night over Britain.


 * 1895 – Birth of Marcel Joseph Maurice Nogues, French WWI fighter ace and balloon buster.


 * 1893 – Birth of Marcel Marc Dhôme, French WWI flying ace, racing car driver, who also served in WWII and during the Korean war.


 * 1888 – Birth of Dr. Ernst Heinkel, German aircraft designer and manufacturer.


 * 1887 – Birth of Paul Wenzel, German WWI flying ace.