Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/July 11

July 11


 * 2013 – United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement begins a program of twice-weekly flights involuntarily carrying up to 136 illegal immigrants at a time from El Paso, Texas, to Mexico City, Mexico. The program is intended to deter illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States by flying such immigrants deep into Mexico before releasing them. A two-month trial of the program in 2012 had returned 2,300 Mexicans to Mexico.


 * 2011 – Angara Airlines Flight 9007, an Antonov An-24, ditches into the Ob River, Russia, after an engine fire, killing 7 of 37 on board; the aircraft is written off.


 * 2002 – First flight of the Adam A500, a six-seat civil utility aircraft, pod-and-boom, push-pull configuration.


 * 1997 – A Cubana de Aviacion Antonov An-24 crashes into the Caribbean off southeast Cuba, killing 44.


 * 1996 – An General Dynamics F-16C Block 50C Fighting Falcon, 91-0354, of the 77th Fighter Squadron, being relocated from Shaw AFB, South Carolina, to Eglin AFB, Florida, to avoid Hurricane Bertha, crashes at ~1530 hrs. into a neighborhood 20 miles N of Pensacola, Florida, following an engine failure, striking two homes and killing a four-year old boy. A man and woman in the house suffered burns. The pilot was forced to eject two miles short of the runway. The pilot was uninjured. The accident investigation showed foreign object damage to a fan blade caused a crack seven thousands of an inch (too small to visually spot). The blade was ingested into the engine. The engine had failed three times during the flight with two relights. With the third engine failure the pilot ditched the aircraft into what he hoped was an unpopulated area, and ejected at only 200 feet.


 * 1991 – Nigeria Airways Flight 2120, a Nationair McDonnell Douglas DC-8-61 chartered by Nigeria Airways to transport Nigerian pilgrims to Mecca, crashes shortly after takeoff from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, because of a fire caused by tire failure. All 261 on board die, including 14 Canadian crew members.


 * 1983 – A TAME Boeing 737-200 crashes into a hill near Cuenca, Ecuador, killing all 119 on board.


 * 1979 – A Garuda Indonesia Fokker F28 strikes a volcano on approach to Medan Airport, Indonesia, killing all 61 on board.


 * 1979 – America's First space station, Skylab (unmanned launch of space station), is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.


 * 1979 – Second Lockheed Have Blue stealth testbed, c/n 1002, was lost at Groom Lake, Nevada on its 52nd flight when a hydraulic leak set the aircraft on fire. The pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Ken Dyson, ejected safely, but the prototype was destroyed when it impacted 35 miles NW of Groom Lake. Like its predecessor, it was buried under the desert.


 * 1978 – The UK government agrees to fund development of the BAe 146


 * 1973 – Varig Flight 820, a Boeing 707, experiences an on-board fire and crashes near Paris, France, killing 123 out of 134 on board.


 * 1965 – A USAF Lockheed EC-121H-LO Warning Star, 55-136, of the 551st AEWCW, out of Otis AFB, Massachusetts, develops a fire in the number three (starboard inner) engine, attempts ditching in the North Atlantic ~100 miles E of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Night touchdown in zero-zero weather, while on fire, proves difficult, aircraft crashes and breaks apart. Of the 19 people on board, three crew members survive, 16 die. Seven of the crew bodies are never recovered.


 * 1963 – First flight of The Grumman American AA-1, American light, 2-seat aircraft which will lead to the AA-1 Yankee Clipper and AA-1 A Trainer, the Grumman American AA-1 B Trainer and TR-2 and the Gulfstream American AA-1 C Lynx and T-Cat, and later to the AA-5 family (Traveler/Cheetah/Tiger)


 * 1962 – Cosmonaut Micolaev set then record longest space flight – 4 days.


 * 1962 – Telstar 1 relayed its first, and non-public, television pictures (a flag outside Andover Earth Station) to Pleumeur-Bodou.


 * 1961 – United Airlines Flight 859, a Douglas DC-8, crashes on landing at Stapleton International Airport, killing 17 passengers and one person on the ground.


 * 1957 – First Lockheed F-104 Starfighter prototype, XF-104-LO, 53-7786, c/n 1001, with Lockheed test pilot Bill Park flying chase on an F-104A flown by Bob Matye during a tail flutter test, loses empennage in high speed, low altitude flight, successfully ejects using downward ejection seat. The XF-104 had a lower limit Mach than the F-104A and apparently reached the flutter limit sooner than A-model.


 * 1955 – The U. S. Air Force Academy is dedicated at its temporary location, Lowry Air Force Base. First class of 306 Cadets are sworn in at Lowry and were housed in renovated World War II barracks until the Colorado Springs location construction was complete in August 1958.


 * 1952 – Aircraft from the U. S. Navy aircraft carriers USS Princeton (CV-37) and USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31), the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Ocean (R68), the U. S. Marine Corps, the U. S. Air Force, and the Royal Australian Air Force conduct a massive attack on industrial targets in and around Pyongyang, Korea.


 * 1952 – First flight of the F-500 'Monitor' I, French 2 seat single engine monoplane trainer prototype.


 * 1950 – Birth of James "Larry" DeLucas, American biochemist and NASA Astronaut.


 * 1949 – A U.S. Navy pilot trainee is killed when his Vought F4U-4 Corsair strikes a parked North American SNJ Texan at Naval Auxiliary Air Station Corry Field, Florida, upon returning from a period of field carrier landing practice. It approaches on landing, and the port wing strikes a static SNJ in a parking area and the Corsair "cartwheels" onto its back, killing the pilot


 * 1948 – First air bombing of Jerusalem.


 * 1946 – TWA Flight 513, a Lockheed L-049 Constellation, crashes near Reading, Pennsylvania after a fire in the baggage compartment; of the 6 crew on board, only one survives.


 * 1944 – A U.S. Army Air Force Boeing B-17G-75-BO Flying Fortress, 44-38023, en route from Kearney Army Airfield, Nebraska, to Dow Field, Maine, for overseas deployment, crashes into Deer Mountain in Parkertown Township in North Oxford, Maine, during a thunderstorm, killing all ten crew: Sgt. James A. Benson, Sgt. Gerald V. Biddle, 2nd Lt. John T. Cast, 2nd Lt. John W. Drake, 2nd Lt. William Hudgens, Cpl. John H. Jones, Staff Sgt. Wayne D. McGavran, Sgt. Cecil L. Murphy, 2nd Lt. Robert S. Talley, and Sgt. Clarence M. Waln. Locals saw the plane circling before it struck terrain 500 feet below the summit. It apparently descended below the clouds, struck treetops, and cartwheeled across the mountainside. Two days later, after a search by more than 100 spotters from the Civil Air Patrol, the Army Air Force, the Navy, and the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Boeing B-17’s wreckage was found on the side of the mountain. Ironically, this is the second worst military crash in Maine history, and it occurred the same day as an A-26 Invader crash at Portland that killed 21


 * 1944 – U.S. Army Lt. Phillip "Phee" Russell was attempting to land his Douglas A-26B-5-DT Invader, 43-22253, at the Portland-Westbrook Municipal Airport at 1645 hrs. this date. For reasons that were never fully determined, Russell lost control of the plane and crashed into a trailer park in a nearby neighborhood in South Portland, Maine. Two crew, and 19 people on the ground were killed and 20 people were injured—mostly women and children—making it the worst aviation accident in Maine history.


 * 1943 – Axis aircraft make a second major bombing raid against ships off Sicily, sinking two ammunition ships.


 * 1943 – (overnight) The U. S. Army Air Forces’ 52nd Troop Carrier Wing flies United States Army paratroopers from North Africa for a parachute landing in Sicily. The 144 transport aircraft fly in darkness at low level over Allied ships offshore and Allied troops on the front line, arriving during an Axis bombing attack, and both the ships and troops ashore mistakenly open fire on them. Twenty-three of the aircraft are shot down, with the loss of 100 lives.


 * 1942 – In the longest bombing raid of World War II, 24 (of 44 launched) British Lancaster bombers attack the Polish port of Danzig.


 * 1939 – First flight of the Marinens Flyvebaatfabrikk M.F.12


 * 1937 – The Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy agree that if a full-scale war breaks out with China, the army will have the responsibility for operations in northern China and the navy in central and southern China.


 * 1937 – German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters appear over the battlefield around Brunete, Spain, proving themselves much more effective than Republican Polikarpov I-15 fighters, although outnumbered by the I-15 s.


 * 1935 – First flight of the Yakovlev UT-2


 * 1935 – Laura Ingalls arrives in Burbank, California after an 18-hour flight from Floyd Bennett Field, New York, making her the first woman to fly east to west across the United States.


 * 1934 – Howard Hughes Takes off from New York for a new distance record around the Northern Hemisphere with a Lockheed Electra 14.


 * 1933 – First flight of The Dewoitine D.332 'Emeraude', French eight-passenger airliner.


 * 1922 – An international convention for the regulation of air navigation begins.


 * 1919 – President Woodrow Wilson signs the Naval Appropriations Act of 1920, which includes funding for the conversion of the collier USS Jupiter into the United States Navy’s first aircraft carrier.


 * 1915 – The first two flying pupils, H. Strachan Ince and F. Homer Smith graduated from the Curtis Aviation School Toronto Ont.


 * 1915 – Birth of Colin Purdie Kelly, Jr., American WWII bomber pilot, one of the First heroes of the war for sacrificing his own life to save his crew.


 * 1914 – Reinhold Böhm lands his Albatros-biplane after a 24 hours and 12 min without refueling and nonstop.


 * 1914 – Lincoln Beachy was the first pilot in Canada to Loop-the-loop and accomplish inverted flight. This was done at Winnipeg, Manitoba.


 * 1901 – The Wright brothers‘ arrive for another season at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, during which they will test their 1901 glider.


 * 1907 – First flight of the Blériot VI Libellule.


 * 1894 – Birth of Edward Anderson 'Eddie' Stinson, Early American aviator and aircraft designer, founder of the Stinson Aircraft Company.


 * 1897 – Salomon August Andrée, Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel takes off their hydrogen balloon 'Eagle' for an arctic expedition.


 * 1892 – Birth of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory KCB, DSO & Bar, WWI pilot and senior commander in the Royal Air Force during WWII.


 * 1891 – Birth of Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, French aviator who set some altitude and speed records.


 * 1889 – Birth of Walter Richard Brookins, First pilot trained by the Wright brothers for their exhibition team and Wrights' First pilot instructor.


 * 1886 – Birth of Ernest Thompson Willows, pioneer Welsh aviator and airship builder, First person in the United Kingdom to hold a pilots certificate for an airship.


 * 1877 – Birth of Giulio Laureati, Italian WWI pilot.