Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/July 24

July 24


 * 2012 – The Syrian Air Force attacks rebels for the first time in the Syrian Civil War, when MiG-23s (NATO reporting name "Flogger") bomb eastern areas of Aleppo.


 * 2009 – Aria Air Flight 1525, an Ilyushin Il-62, skids off the runway at Mashhad International Airport, killing 17 of 153 on board.


 * 2009 – The Italian Civil Aviation Authority suspends the operating licence of MyAir due to financial problems and service failures.


 * 1999 – All Nippon Airways Flight 61, a Boeing 747, is hijacked by a passenger, Yuji Nishizawa, wielding a knife; after fatally stabbing the captain, he is overpowered by the crew; the first officer lands the plane safely at Haneda, Japan.


 * 1993 – First flight of the PZL M28 (Skytruck)


 * 1993 – At 1517 hrs. two Mikoyan MiG-29s, 526, c/n 25887, and 925, c/n 15564, of the Russian Flight Research Institute took off for a demonstration at RIAT RAF Fairford 1993, but during display suffer mid-air collision, both pilots, Alexander Beschastonov and Sergey Tresvyatsk,2] ejecting safely. Video of this accident is widely available on the internet.


 * 1992 – Mandala Airlines Flight 660, a Vickers Viscount 816, crashed on approach to Pattimura Airport, Ambon, Indonesia, killing all 7 crew and 63 passengers on board.


 * 1978 – McDonnell Douglas completes the 5,000th F-4 Phantom II.


 * 1970 – USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4C-20-MC Phantom II, 63-7609, crashes SE of McNeal, Arizona.


 * 1969 – Apollo 11 splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean.


 * 1965 – Four F-4 C Phantoms escorting a bombing raid at Kang Chi are the targets of SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air antiaircraft missiles in the first such attack against American planes in the Vietnam war. One is shot down and the other three sustain damage.


 * 1961 – Deliveries of the McDonnell CF-101 Voodoo to the Royal Canadian Air Force commence.


 * 1953 – (24-26) Operating off the east coast of Korea, the U. S. Navy aircraft carriers USS Boxer (CVA-21), USS Lake Champlain (CVA-39), USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47), and USS Princeton (CVA-37), supporting United Nations ground forces, break records for the number of sorties flown with the highest sortie rates of the Korean War. They average 170 sorties per day, and Princeton aircraft fly 184 sorties on one day.


 * 1946 – Bernard Lynch becomes the first person to be “shot” out of an airplane. Lynch was involved in the first airborne test of a British “ejection seat. ” Lynch ejected from a Gloster Meteor Mk III at 320 mph.


 * 1945 – Task Force 38 carrier aircraft fly 1,747 sorties against no air opposition, striking targets in the Inland Sea of Japan in one of the heaviest days of carrier air strikes of World War II. At Kure, Japan, they sink the battleship Hyūga, the heavy cruisers Tone and Aoba, and the obsolete battleship Settsu and armored cruiser Iwate, heavily damage the aircraft carrier Amagi, and damage the aircraft carrier Kaiyo. In addition, 570 U. S. Army Air Forces B-29 s drop 3,445 tons (3,125,283 kg) of bombs on Osaka and Nagoya, Japan.


 * 1945 – (24-26) Aircraft from carriers of the British 21st Aircraft Carrier Squadron strike Japanese airfields and shipping in northern Malaya.


 * 1944 – U. S. forces land on Tinian.


 * 1943 – The Royal Air Force (RAF) use “Window, ” code name for metal foil dropped to confuse enemy radar, for the first time.


 * 1943 – (Overnight) 791 British bombers attack Hamburg, Germany, beginning Operation Gomorrah or the “Battle of Hamburg, a systematic effort by Bomber Command chief Air Marshal Arthur Harris to destroy the city. For the first time, the Royal Air Force uses chaff, codenamed “Window”, to foil German radar. About 1,500 people are killed, more than in all 137 previous air attacks on the city combined. Twelve British bombers are lost.


 * 1941 – The Boeing-built Douglas DB-7 B attack bomber makes its first flight.


 * 1938 – At Campo de Marte, Santa Ana, Usaquén, Colombia, a pilot performing an aerobatic display crashes a Curtiss F11C Goshawk into a crowd attending a military review. Sources differ on the number killed and injured up to 75 died and 100 or more were injured. According to TIME magazine, the pilot, Flt. Lt. Cesar Abadia of the Colombian Air Force, disregarded standing orders not to fly below 500 feet and attempted to dive through a narrow gap between two grandstands. The pilot misjudged his approach and a wingtip hit the Diplomatic stand the plane then smashed against the Presidential stand and exploded, raining flaming debris down on spectators located between the two grandstands.


 * 1926 – Two Lufthansa Junkers G.24s leave Berlin to make a round-trip to Beijing. They will return on September 26.


 * 1917 – Congress approves the expenditure of $640 million on military aviation. It is the largest single appropriation approved by Congress.


 * 1897 – Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean and one of the world’s most famous aviators, is born in Atchinson, Kansas.