Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/January 31

January 31


 * 2011 – Death of Charles Huron Kaman, American aeronautical engineer, businessman, inventor and philanthropist, known for his work in rotary-wing flight and also in musical instrument design.


 * 2010 – Guicango Yakovlev Yak-40 D2-FES suffered the collapse of all landing gears on landing at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport, Luanda, Angola on a flight from Cabinda.


 * 2007 – A Blackwater USA Bell 412 helicopter is shot down under fire near Karma during a flight between Al Hillah and Baghdad. A US military helicopter rescues the passengers and crew.


 * 2005 – A Colombian government Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter on an anti-narcotics mission crashes in heavy fog near Manguipayan, Colombia killing all 20 on board.


 * 2002 – Death of Francis Stanley "Gabby" Gabreski (Franciszek Gabryszewski), top American fighter ace in Europe during WWII, and jet fighter ace in Korea.


 * 2001 – The 2001 Japan Airlines mid-air incident: Japan Airlines Flight 907, a Douglas DC-10, and Japan Airlines Flight 958, a Boeing 747, narrowly avoid colliding near Yaizu, Japan.


 * 2000 – Alaska Airlines Flight 261, an MD-83, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off Point Mugu, California after problems with its horizontal stabilizer. All 83 passengers and 5 crew members are killed.


 * 1992 – TWA files for bankruptcy


 * 1991 – An Iraqi shoulder-launched Strela 2 surface-to-air missile hits a U. S. Air Force AC-130 H Spectre gunship over Kuwait during the Battle of Khafji; the aircraft crashes into the Persian Gulf, killing all 14 on board. It is the largest Coalition loss of life in a single aviation incident during the Gulf War.


 * 1989 – Death of William Samuel Stephenson, Canadian WWI fighter ace, businessman, inventor, spymaster, considered as the real-life inspirations for James Bond.


 * 1986 – Boeing completes purchase of de Havilland Canada


 * 1983 – The Ayres Turbo Thrush NEEDS cropduster plane officially joins the United States' "war on drugs".


 * 1980 – Lockheed U-2C, 56-6714, Article 381, 21st airframe of first USAF order, delivered August 1957, to 4080th SRW, Laughlin AFB, Texas, as a 'hard nose' sampling aircraft; transferred to the Central Intelligence Agency and converted to U-2G in mid-1965; transferred to Strategic Air Command; flyable storage at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, 1969. Returned to U-2C configuration for Advanced Location and Strike System (ALSS) project, 1972; damaged 2 May 1974 on landing at Davis-Monthan AFB, repaired. Written off after crash on 31 January 1980, Capt. Edward Beaumont surviving. Pilot suffered catatonic seizure, and, amazingly, descended to make uncontrolled landing in cow pasture near Oroville, California, even clipping power lines just before touchdown. Cessna T-37 Tweet trainer, flying locally, had rendezvoused with U-2 and two crew could see pilot unconscious in the cockpit. After landing, pilot revived sufficiently to shut down engine, but then, as he climbed out of the aircraft, accidentally caught the D ring of his ejection seat, which he had not safed, which fired, tossing him in a somersault, but suffered only a chipped tooth. Airframe repaired for display at 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing headquarters, Beale AFB, California. Pilot removed from U-2 program on medical grounds.


 * 1977 – First flight of the Cessna Citation II, an American light corporate jet development of the Citation I.


 * 1971 – In the 1971 January 31 Surgut Aeroflot Antonov An-12 crash, an An-12 crashes due to icing while on approach to Surgut International Airport; all 7 on board are killed. This was the second of the two nearly identical accidents 9 days apart.


 * 1971 – Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.


 * 1970 – Mikhail Mil dies, aged 61. He was the founder of the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant, which is responsible for many of the well-known Russian helicopter models, notably the Mil Mi-24 'Hind'.


 * 1970 – Retired: Convair B-58 Hustler


 * 1966 – Launch of Luna 9, Soviet uncrewed space mission and first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on any planetary body other than Earth and to transmit photographic data to Earth.


 * 1966 – The United States resumes Operation Rolling Thunder over North Vietnam.


 * 1963 – Sikorsky HSS-1N Seabat BuNo 149133, c/n 58-1375, coded '140', and BuNo 147635, c/n 58-1160, coded '145', ex-'H-9', both from 8 Squadron of the Koninklijke Marine, both ditch near Gibraltar and are lost.


 * 1961 – American space mission Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2): Ham the Chimp is the first chimpanzee launched into outer space in the American space program. He flew 16 min in Mercury spacecraft No. 5.


 * 1958 – First flight of the North American T-2 Buckeye, a US Navy's intermediate training aircraft, intended to introduce Student Naval Aviators to jets.


 * 1958 – Explorer 1 is The first successful American satellite launched into orbit.


 * 1958 – During simulated Strategic take-off from Sidi Slimane air base, French Morocco, a USAF Boeing B-47E-25-LM Stratojet, 52-0242, of the 368th Bomb Squadron, 306th Bomb Wing, MacDill AFB, Florida, suffers failure of left-rear landing gear casting, tail strikes ground, rupturing fuel tank. Aircraft burns for seven hours. Fortunately, Mk. 36, Mod 1 TN nuclear weapon on board, in strike configuration, does not detonate, although weapon burns to slag within the confines of the wreckage.


 * 1957 – A Douglas DC-7 B being operated by the Douglas Aircraft Company on a test flight with a crew of four prior to delivery to Continental Airlines collides in mid-air over California's San Fernando Valley with a U. S. Air Force F-89 J Scorpion on a test flight with a crew of two to check its radar equipment. The F-89 J crashes in La Tuna Canyon in the Verdugo Mountains, killing its pilot and injuring the other crew member, who ejects to a parachute landing in Burbank, California. The DC-7 B remains airborne for several minutes, dropping debris into neighborhoods below, before crashing into the grounds of a church and the athletic field of Pacoima Junior High School in the Pacoima district of Los Angeles, California, where 220 boys are gathered; the crash kills all four people on the plane and three boys on the ground, and injures an estimated 74 students.


 * 1956 – USAF North American TB-25N Mitchell, 44-29125, on cross country flight from Nellis AFB, Nevada to Olmsted AFB, Pennsylvania, after departing Selfridge AFB, Michigan suffers fuel starvation NE of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in mid-afternoon, attempts to divert to Greater Pittsburgh AFB, ditches in the Monongahela River at the 4.9-mile (7.9 km) marker, west of the Homestead High-Level Bridge, drifts ~1.5 miles (2.4 km) downstream in 8–10 knots. current, remaining afloat for 10–15 minutes. All six crew evacuate but two are lost in the 35 °F (2 °C) water before rescue. Search for sunken bomber suspended 14 February with no success – aircraft is thought to have possibly settled in submerged gravel pit area in 32 feet (9.8 m) of water, ~150 feet (46 m) from shore, possibly now covered by 10–15 feet of silt. This crash remains one of the Pittsburgh region's unsolved mysteries.


 * 1953 – United States Air Force Captain Ben L. Fithian (pilot) and Lieutenant Sam R. Lyons score the first aerial victory in a Lockheed F-94 Starfire, shooting down a Lavochkin La-9 (NATO reporting name "Fritz") over Korea. It is the first of four kills by F-94 s during the Korean War.


 * 1953 – A Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune of VP-22 goes missing out of Naha Air Base, Okinawa. Subsequent search reveals the wreckage with 11 victims on a mountainside at the northeast end of Okinawa.


 * 1953 – A USAF North American F-86F Sabre crashes in bad weather while on final approach to Truax Field, Wisconsin, killing the pilot Major Hampton E. Boggs a former Korean War pilot and second ranking ace with the 459th Fighter Squadron flying the Lockheed P-38 Lightning during the China-Burma-India campaign (1943–1945).


 * 1951 – Captain Charles Blair flies a P-51 Mustang (christened "Excalibur III") piston engine fighter non-stop from New York to London to test the jet stream, traveling 3,478 miles (5,597 km) at an average speed of 446 miles per hour (718 km/h) in 7 hours 48 min.


 * 1949 – Pan Am receives the first Boeing Model 377 Stratocruiser to be delivered.


 * 1945 – During January, B-29 s raiding Japan have suffered a 5.7 percent loss rate.


 * 1945 – The U. S. Army Air Forces' Seventh Air Force begins two weeks of day-and-night bombing of Iwo Jima.


 * 1945 – The 1945 Australian National Airways Stinson crash, a Stinson Tokana operated by Australian National Airways crashed, killing all 10 on board. The accident was caused by a fatigue crack in a wing spar.


 * 1944 – Since December 1, 1943, American daylight combat air patrols over the Gilbert Islands have been so effective that 34 of the 35 Japanese raids that get through to attack Tarawa Atoll and Butaritari strike at night. The Japanese also raid Abemama three times during the period. All the Japanese strikes combined during the two months destroy 33 American planes, damage nine, and sink a landing craft.


 * 1944 – The American invasion of the Marshall Islands, Operation Flintlock, begins with landings on Kwajalein Island, Roi-Namur, and Majuro. The American carrier raids have been so successful that the Japanese have no operational aircraft left in the islands with which to oppose them. Six American fleet aircraft carrier, two light aircraft carriers, and six escort aircraft carriers support the landings at Kwajalein Atoll and two escort carriers cover the landings at Majuro. American carrier aircraft also bomb Eniwetok, Maloelap, and Wotje.


 * 1943 – Bad weather has so restricted operations of the U. S. Army Air Forces' Eleventh Air Force during the January that it has dropped only 10½ tons (9,526 kg) of bombs on Japanese bases in the Aleutian Islands during the month and lost eleven aircraft, none to enemy action.


 * 1943 – The DeHavilland Mosquitos bombed Berlin to disrupt parade as it's being addressed by Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering.


 * 1942 – During the winter of 1941–1942, Royal Air Force Bomber Command experiences a 2.5 percent loss rate among its aircraft attacking Germany.


 * 1941 – First Harvard built in Canada was delivered to RCAF Rockcliffe.


 * 1934 – Death of Walter Wellman, American journalist, explorer, and aeronaut.


 * 1928 – The Cackle Corner Poultry Farm in Garrettsville, Ohio stated that low flying planes were affecting egg production; thus becoming the first aircraft noise complaint reported to the Aeronautics Branch of the Commerce Department


 * 1923 – First flight of the Cierva C.4 autogyro, flies a 4-kilometer (2.5-statute mile) circuit at Cuatro Vientos airfield in Spain.


 * 1911 – The USS Pennsylvania conducts the United States Navy's only experiment with a man-lifting kite.


 * 1911 – Employing an aircraft platform installed in November 1910 that had a hinged extension that could be lowered to sea level to assist Canadian civilian aviator John A. D. McCurdy if he had to land on the sea while attempting a flight from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, the United States Navy destroyer Pajulding recovers McCurdy after he is forced down at sea. The hope that he could use the platform to take off and resume his journey is dashed when his airplane is too badly damaged during the recovery to continue its journey.


 * 1896 – Birth of Richard Burnard Munday, British WWI flying ace and balloon buster, notable for scoring Britain's first night victory.


 * 1892 – Birth of Heinrich Bongartz, Pour le Merite, Royal House Order of Hohenzollern, Iron Cross, German WWI fighter ace. He also served as a night fighter commander in WWII.


 * 1890 – Birth of Jeffery Batters Home-Hay, Scottish-born Canadian WWI Bomber pilot and flying ace, pioneering Canadian bush pilot. By the end of his aviation career, he was the oldest pilot still flying in Canada.


 * 1883 – Birth of Jacob Earl "Jake" Fickel, USAF Major General usually associated with being an instructor of aviation. He is credited with firing the first recorded gunshot ever from an airplane.


 * 1785 – Birth of Charles Green, British famous balloonist.


 * 1769 – Birth of André-Jacques Garnerin, French inventor of the frame-less parachute.