Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/July 19

July 19


 * 2011 – A Royal Thai Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed killing 9 people. The chopper had been sent out to recover five bodies of victims of another helicopter, a Bell UH-1 Iroquois, that had crashed two days before while looking for illegal loggers over the Tenasserim Hills in the area between Myanmar and Thailand near Phetchaburi. A third helicopter, a Bell 212, also crashed in the same area on Sunday 25 July a few miles further east close to the Kaeng Krachan reservoir killing three.


 * 2010 – A Philippine Air Force SIAI S-211 09005 crashed during a training flight in the Philippines. The crew ejected safely.


 * 2009 – Afghanistan Mil Mi-8 crash: A civilian Mil Mi-8 helicopter chartered by NATO crashed at Kandahar International Airport in southern Afghanistan killing 16 and injuring 5. The aircraft was not shot down, but rather apparently trying to take off.


 * 2009 – A Chinese Air Force Xian JH-7 (FBC-1 Flying Leopard) crashes near the Taonan tactical training base in Jilin province while on a joint counter-terrorism exercises with Russia resulting in the death of 2 crew.


 * 2005 – AH-64D Apache 02-5319 from 1–3rd Aviation Regiment crashes in Iraq, injuring the two pilots. Helicopter is written off.


 * 2004 – (19-24) The 16th FAI World Precision Flying Championship in Herning, Denmark. Individual winners: Krzysztof Wieczorek (Poland) – 3Xtrim, 2. Petr Opat (Czech) – Cessna 152, 3. Wacław Wieczorek (Poland) – PZL Wilga 2000; team winners: 1. Poland, 2. Czech Republic, 3. France.


 * 2004 – near Basra, a British HC.1 Aérospatiale Puma XW221 of 33 RAF Squadron crashes, killing one crewman and injuring two others.


 * 1994 – Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901, an Embraer EMB-110, explodes in mid-air over Panama, killing all 21 people on board. Investigators conclude that a suicide bomber caused the plane to explode, although motives and affiliation of the bomber remain unclear.


 * 1989 – United Airlines Flight 232, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, suffers a complete hydraulic system failure over Iowa, United States after the tail-mounted engine disintegrates. The crew maintains partial control of the aircraft using differential throttle, bringing it to a crash landing on the runway of the Sioux City, Iowa airport. Of the 296 people on board, 111 die.


 * 1989 – A U.S. Navy McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18 Hornet from Cecil Field, NAS Jacksonville, Florida, loses a 950-pound training bomb over Waldo, Florida, in the afternoon. The ordnance narrowly misses home with four inside, bounces off tree, skips over a second home, and impacts in a field where the spotting charge explodes. No one is injured in the incident. Navy spokesman Bert Byers states that the pilot lost track of the bomb after it fell off the jet.


 * 1985 – Sharon Christa McAuliffe is chosen by NASA to be the first private citizen passenger in the history of space flight.


 * 1981 – The USS Guam, while operating 50 km SE of Morehead City, North Carolina (USA), a Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter crashes into another CH-53 and a Bell UH-1N Twin Huey upon landing. Four crewmen die and 10 are injured.


 * 1973 – Soyuz 14 lands


 * 1967 – Piedmont Airlines Flight 22, a Boeing 727 departing from Asheville, North Carolina, crashes shortly after takeoff after a mid-air collision with a twin-engine Cessna 310 on instrument approach to Asheville; all 82 passengers and crew on both aircraft die.


 * 1963 – Joe Walker flies a North American X-15 to a record altitude of 106,010 m (347,800 feet) on X-15 Flight 90. Exceeding an altitude of 100 km, this flight qualifies as a human spaceflight under international convention.


 * 1962 – United Arab Airlines Flight 869 (1962), a de Havilland DH-106 Comet 4 C on an international scheduled flight from Hong Kong to Cairo via Bangkok, crashes into the Khao Yai mountain while descending to Bangkok; all 26 die.


 * 1961 – Aerolíneas Argentinas Flight 644, a Douglas DC-6, crashed a half hour after takeoff from Ministro Pistarini International Airport in Bueno Aires, Argentina. All 67 passengers and crew on board were killed.


 * 1961 – MGM's By Love Possessed is shown on a TWA Boeing 707, the first feature film exhibited on a regularly scheduled commercial airline flight


 * 1960 – Introduction: Canadair CL-44


 * 1960 – In the wake of the Congo Crisis, a Belgian Air Force (BAF) Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar, CP36, c/n 11083, crashes into a mountain in Rushengo near Goma after an engine caught fire. 41 died.


 * 1958 – The NATO Training Plan ended this date after having trained 5575 pilot and navigators from Euopean partners to wing standard.


 * 1957 – A USAF Northrop F-89 J Scorpion launches a live MB-1 'Ding Dong' nuclear rocket.


 * 1947 – RAF Bristol Brigand TF.1, RH742, assigned to the A&AEE, piloted by F/L T. Morren, failed to pull out of firing pass during exercise in the Lyme Bay area off the Dorset coast, entered slow roll and lost speed while inverted, into spiral dive into sea, killing both crew. It was thought that one of the dive brakes may have failed. This was the first fatal accident in the type


 * 1945 – U. S. Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortresses strike Hitachi, Japan.


 * 1944 – 1,200+ 8th Air Force bombers bomb targets in SW Germany.


 * 1944 – Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress 42-102937 crashed at RAF Duxford, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom when attempting to buzz the airfield at too low an altitude. The aircraft clipped a hangar and crashed into a barracks block killing all thirteen on board and one person on the ground.


 * 1943 – First flight of the Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender


 * 1943 – 500 allied air forces raid Rome during WW II.


 * 1943 – Soviet Air Forces fighter pilot Yekaterina Budanova, along with Lydia Litvyak, one of only two female aces in history, is shot down and killed in a dogfight with Messerschmitt Bf 109 s over Luhansk Oblast. Although her victory total is unclear, she is commonly credited with 11 kills.


 * 1937 – The official search for missing flyers Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan was abandoned.


 * 1934 – July 19-August 20 – Gen Henry Arnold leads ten Martin B-10 bombers on an 8,000 mile (12,875 km) proving flight.


 * 1934 – F9C Sparrowhawk parasite fighters from airship USS Macon successfully launch from the airship, scout out the cruiser USS Houston and return to the Macon.


 * 1930 – Death of Frank Goldsborough in a crash in Vermont.


 * 1924 – First flight of the Blériot 135


 * 1923 – Czechoslovakian airline CSA commences operations.


 * 1921 – USAAS pilot 1st Lt. Willard S. Clark is killed at Ellington Field, Texas, when his Orenco D enters a spin at low altitude and plunges to the ground. All aircraft manufactured in this batch are grounded.


 * 1920 – The Vickers R. 80 airship, designed in an innovative streamlined shape by company designer Barnes Wallis, makes its first flight.


 * 1918 – Seven Sopwith 2 F.1 Camels from the Royal Navy aircraft carrier Furious attack the Imperial German Navy airship base at Tondern, destroying the Zeppelins L 54 and L 60. It is the most successful attack by shipboard aircraft of World War I.


 * 1913 – First example of skywriting by Milton J Bryant over Seattle WA, in forming a business of aerial advertising.


 * 1912 – Winnipeg Manitoba was the sight of the first mile-high altitude flight in Canada, 6000 ft.


 * 1909 – Hubert Latham makes the first attempt to cross the English Channel. He flies 11.2 km (7 mi) from Calais in an Antoinette IV and lands in the water. He becomes the first aviator to be rescued from the English Channel when a French warship picks him up.


 * 1867 – James W. Butler and Edmund Edwards are awarded His Majesty's Patent 2115 for their delta wing jet design the Steam Dart.


 * 1812, lamp gas used to fill a Montgolfière (Green).