Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/January 5

January 5


 * 2011 – An attempt is made to hijack Turkish Airlines Flight 1754 from Gardermoen Airport, Oslo to Ataturk International Airport, Istanbul. The hijacker was overpowered by other passengers on the flight and was arrested when the aircraft landed. The flight was being operated by Boeing 737–800 TC-JGZ.


 * 2009 – C-GEAJ, an Antarctic Logistic Center International Basler BT-67, crashes on landing at Tony Camp, Antarctica. All four occupants survive but the aircraft is damaged beyond repair.


 * 2006 – Independence Air closed operations after declaring bankruptcy.


 * 2002 – A Cessna 172 stolen and flown by a teenager crashed into the side of the Bank of America Tower in downtown Tampa, Florida.


 * 1995 – Death of Benjamin Robert Rich, 2nd director of Lockheed's Skunk Works from 1975 to 1991, succeeding its founder, Kelly Johnson. Regarded as the "father of stealth".


 * 1983 – United Airlines begins the first scheduled nonstop service between the continental United States and Maui.


 * 1981 – Death of James Martin CBE DSc CEng FIMechE FRAeS, British engineer who, with Captain Valentine Baker, was the founder of the Martin-Baker aircraft company which is now a leading producer of aircraft ejection seats.


 * 1977 – Connellan air disaster: This was a suicide attack at Alice Springs Airport, Northern Territory, Australia. Carried out by a disgruntled former employee of Connellan Airways (Connair), who flew a Beechcraft Baron into the Connair complex at the airport, the attack killed four other people and injured four more, two of them seriously


 * 1972 – US President Richard Nixon announces US$5.5 billion in funding for the Space Shuttle program


 * 1969 – Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701, a Boeing 727-100C, arriving at London Gatwick Airport from Frankfurt Airport crashed into a house in dense fog, killing 48 of the 62 persons aboard; a married couple living at the house also died, but their baby survived.


 * 1969 – Venera 5, USSR’s first probe to make a successful planet landing, is launched. It would later enter Venus’ atmosphere on May 16.


 * 1967 – Martin MGM-13 Mace, launched from Site A-15, Santa Rosa Island, Hurlburt Field, Florida, by the 4751st Air Defense Missile Squadron at ~1021 hrs., fails to circle over Gulf of Mexico for test mission with two Eglin AFB McDonnell F-4 Phantom IIs, but heads south for Cuba. Third F-4 overtakes it, fires two test AAMs with limited success, then damages unarmed drone with cannon fire. Mace overflies western tip of Cuba before crashing in Caribbean 100 miles south of the island. International incident narrowly avoided. To forestall the possibility, the United States State Department asks the Swiss Ambassador in Havana to explain the circumstances of the wayward drone to the Cuban government. The Mace had been equipped with an "improved guidance system known as 'ASTRAN' which is considered unjammable." (This was apparently a typo for ATRAN – Automatic Terrain Recognition And Navigation terrain-matching radar navigation.)


 * 1967 – Lockheed A-12, 60-6928, Article 125, lost during training/test flight. CIA pilot Walter Ray successfully ejects but is killed upon impact with terrain due to failed seat-separation sequence. The Air Force-issue seatbelt failed to release properly. The aircraft had run out of fuel for a variety of reasons.


 * 1964 – First flight of the Short Belfast, a British heavy lift turboprop freighter.


 * 1962 – The U. S. Army suffers its first combat fatalities in an aircraft in Vietnam when an H-21 C Shawnee transport helicopter is shot down by Viet Cong ground fire near Dak Roda, South Vietnam, with three killed.


 * 1962 – Three crew killed in crash of USAF Boeing B-47E-105-BW Stratojet, 52-615, of the 22d Bomb Wing, at March AFB, California. This will be the last fatal crash at that base until 19 October 1978. Pilot was Major Clarence Weldon Garrett.


 * 1959 – The Fairey Rotodyne, British compound gyroplane, piloted by Wilfred Ronald 'Ron' Gellatly and John G. P. Morton, sets a world speed record for convertiplanes of 190.9 mph over a 62-mile circuit.


 * 1956 – Sole Piasecki YH-16A Turbo Transporter helicopter prototype, 50-1270, breaks up in flight at ~1555 hrs. and crashes near Swedesboro, New Jersey, near the Delaware River, while returning to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from a test flight over New Jersey. The cause of the crash was later determined to be the aft slip ring, which carried flight data from the instrumented rotor blades to the data recorders in the cabin. The slip ring bearings seized, and the resultant torque load severed the instrumentation standpipe inside the aft rotor shaft. A segment of this steel standpipe tilted over and came into contact with the interior of the aluminum rotor shaft, scribing a deepening groove into it. The rotor shaft eventually failed in flight, which in turn led to the aft blades and forward blades desynchronizing and colliding. The aircraft was a total loss, the two test pilots, Harold Peterson and George Callaghan, were killed. This led to the cancellation not only of the YH-16, but also the planned sixty-nine-passenger YH-16B version.


 * 1953 – The 1953 Nutts Corner Viking accident: a British European Airways Vickers Viking crashes on approach to Belfast-Nutts Corner Airport, 27 of the 31 on board killed.


 * 1953 – First flight of the Ambrosini Sagittario, an Italian aerodynamic research aircraft based on the manufacturer's S.7. New swept wings and tail surfaces of wooden construction were fitted to the S.7 fuselage. The wing leading edge was swept at 45 degrees. At first, the S.7's piston engine was retained and the aircraft was known as the Freccia (Arrow).


 * 1953 – A Royal Air Force Boeing Washington B.1, WF553, of 15 Squadron, RAF Coningsby, crashes whilst attempting a Ground Controlled Approach at Coningsby in bad weather, impacting near Horncastle. Both pilots, the flight engineer, radio operator and nav/radar are killed, whilst the nav/plotter survives with serious injuries.


 * 1952 – Pan Am commences trans-atlantic freight services.


 * 1950 – In the 1950 Sverdlovsk air disaster, a Lisunov Li-2 crashes near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg), Russia, killing all 19 on board, including 11 Soviet Air Force hockey players.


 * 1950 – A Boeing B-50A-10-BO Superfortress, 46-021, c/n 15741 of the 3200th Proof Test Group out of Eglin AFB, crash lands in the Choctawhatchee Bay, northwest Florida, killing two of the 11 crew. Nine escape from the downed aircraft following the forced landing. The airframe settles in eight to ten feet of mud at a depth of 38 feet (12 m). Divers recover the body of flight engineer M/Sgt. Claude Dorman, 27, of Kingston, New Hampshire, from the nose of the bomber on Monday, 8 January. The body of S/Sgt. William Thomas Bell, 21, aerial photographer, who lived in Mayo, Florida, is recovered on Tuesday, 9 January, outside the plane from beneath the tail. The Eglin base public information officer identified the surviving crew as 1st Lt. Park R. Bidwell, instructor pilot; 1st Lt. Vere Short, pilot; 1st Lt. James S. Wigg, co-pilot; Maj. William C. McLaughlin, bombardier; and S/Sgt. Clifford J. Gallipo, M/Sgt. Alton Howard, M/Sgt. William J. Almand, T/Sgt. Samuel G. Broke, and Cpl. William F. Fitzpatrick, crewmen.


 * 1949 – Charles "Chuck" Yeager using a Bell X-1 carried out the only conventional (runway) take off performed during the X-1 program, reaching 23,000 ft (7,000 m) in 90 seconds.


 * 1945 – First rescue mission ever made by a Bell helicopter took place when Jack Woolams bailed out of a P-59 Airacomet in trouble near Lockport. Floyd Carlson and Dr. Thomas C. Marriott took off in one of the Model 30 s and, guided by Joe Masham flying a P-59, rescued the unfortunate pilot.


 * 1945 – Kamikazes damage the U. S. escort carrier USS Manila Bay (CVE-61) and heavy cruiser USS Louisville (CA-28) and the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Australia in the South China Sea west of Manila Bay.


 * 1944 – Six RCAF Handly Page Halifax II’s carried out the Bomber Commands first high-level mine-laying operation.


 * 1943 – In support of the American occupation of Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands scheduled for the next day, U. S. Army Air Forces aircraft fly photographic reconnaissance missions over Amchitka and strike Japanese forces on Attu and Kiska, sinking two fully loaded Japanese transports approaching Attu and Kiska.


 * 1941 – Renowned aviatrix Amy Johnson takes off from an overnight stopover at Squire's Gate, Blackpool in Airspeed Oxford V3540 on an ATA delivery flight from RAF Prestwick, Scotland to RAF Kidlington, in Oxfordshire. The weather is foggy and foul, and, ATA crews flying without radio, Johnson becomes lost. When next seen more than three hours later over the Thames Estuary, Johnson is parachuting into the water, where the barrage balloon tender Hazlemere, spotting her descent, hurries to pick her up. By the time the vessel reaches Johnson she is exhausted and unable to grab the line thrown to her. An officer from the tender, Lt.Cmdr. Walter Fletcher, dives into the sea to help, but numbed by the cold Johnson sinks beneath the surface. Johnson's body is never recovered. Fletcher succumbs to the cold and also dies. Johnson had made headlines in 1930 when she had become the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.


 * 1939 – Amelia Mary Earhart, noted American aviation pioneer and author, is declared legally dead after disappearance in 1937.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Miles Mentor


 * 1930 – During British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE), RAAF pilot Stuart Campbell and Professor Douglas Mawson with a D. H.60 Gipsy Moth confirmed an extensive new coast of ice cliffs and rocky mountains. Mawson named it MacRobertson Land.


 * 1930 – Birth of Edward Galen "Ed" Givens Jr, USAF test pilot and NASA astronaut.


 * 1918 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin, L 47, LZ87, destroyed by a giant explosion at the air base in Ahlhorn, along with L 46, LZ94, L 51, LZ97, and L 58, LZ105, and one non-Zeppelin-type airship, stabled in three adjacent hangars. This is supposed to have been an accident, though sabotage could not be ruled out.


 * 1917 – First flight of the Sage Type 3


 * 1916 – First operational flight of the Nieuport 11 (Bébé Nieuport), a famous French WWI single seat biplane fighter, the type having first flown in 1915.


 * 1916 – Joseph Eugene Carberry set an altitude record of 11,690 feet (3,560 m) with a Curtiss Jenny, carrying Capt. Benjamin Delahauf Foulois as a passenger.


 * 1903 – Birth of Harold Charles Gatty, Australian navigator, inventor, and aviation pioneer, founder of Fiji Airways (which later became Air Pacific).


 * 1900 – Death of Henry Tracey Coxwell, English aeronaut.


 * 1896 – Birth of Thomas Gantz Cassady, American WWI flying ace, WWII OSS intelligence officer and businessman.


 * 1895 – Birth of Jeannette Ridlon Piccard, American high-altitude balloonist, first woman to fly to the stratosphere.


 * 1892 – Birth of Marcel Anatole Hugues, French WWI flying ace and WWII pilot.


 * 1891 – Birth of Carl "Charly" Degelow, German WWI fighter ace, last German pilot and final German serviceman to be awarded the Blue Max.