Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/July 28

July 28


 * 2012 – Attack helicopters support a Syrian government tank attack against Free Syrian Army positions in Aleppo.


 * 2011 – Asiana Airlines Flight 991, a Boeing 747-400F, crashes 112 kilometers (70 mi) west of Jeju Island, South Korea, killing the two crew.


 * 2011 – A General Dynamics F-16C Block 30H Fighting Falcon, 87-296, c/n 5C-557, of the 187th Fighter Wing, Alabama Air National Guard, flying out of Montgomery Air National Guard Base, overruns the runway at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh air show at Wittman Regional Airport, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The nose gear collapsed, the nose radome broke and the air-frame skidded to a stop. Pilot was uninjured.


 * 2010 – The 2010 Alaska C-17 crash occurred when a United States Air Force military transport plane crashed on Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska with the loss of all four crew aboard. The aircraft involved was a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III (tail number 00-0173) and the crash is believed to be the first fatal accident involving a C-17. The crew were preparing for Elmendorf’s Arctic Thunder Air Show, which went ahead three days later as a tribute.


 * 2010 – Airblue Flight 202, an Airbus A321, crashes into a hill in the Margalla Hills north-east of Islamabad apparently due to bad weather resulting in 146 passengers and 6 crew members perished. It is the first fatal accident involving an Airbus A321 and Pakistan's worst air disaster.


 * 2010 – A United States Air Force Boeing C-17A Lot XII Globemaster III, 00-0173, c/n P-73, "Spirit of the Aleutians", callsign Sitka 43, of the 3d Wing, on a training mission, crashed at ~1822 hrs. into a wooded area on Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska killing 3 members of the Alaska Air National Guard and 1 member of the US Air Force.


 * 2010 – An Iraqi military Mil Mi-17 helicopter crashes in a sandstorm. Five-member crew is killed.


 * 2009 – Cambodian airline Cambodia Angkor Air commences operations.


 * 2008 – Deceased: Margaret Ringenberg, 87, an American aviator, who had logged more than 40,000 hours, natural causes.


 * 2003 – First flight of the Adam A700 AdamJet


 * 1982 – The first McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet is delivered to the Canadian Forces Air Command.


 * 1976 – Czechoslovakia Airlines Flight 001, an Ilyushin Il-18, crashes near Bratislava in Czechoslovakia, killing 76 of 78 people on board.


 * 1976 – Speed Records set. Two records set; USAF Capt Eldon W Joersz, 2193.16 mph over a straight course, and USAF Maj Adolphus H Bledsoe, 2092.29 mph over a closed circuit, both in Lockheed SR-71As at Beale AFB CA.


 * 1976 – Altitude record of 85,069′ attained in horizontal flight set in a Lockheed SR-71 A at Beale AFB CA by USAF Capt Robert C. Helt.


 * 1958 – Two B-47 Stratojet bombers of the U.S. Air Force's 305th Bombardment Wing set speed records, when one flies from RCAF Goose Bay, Labrador, to RAF Fairford, England, in 4 hours 14 minutes and the other flies from Limestone Air Force Base, Maine, to RAF Fairford in 4 hours 45 minutes.


 * 1957 – Two Mark 5 nuclear bombs without nuclear capsules installed were jettisoned from a Douglas C-124 Globemaster II in the Atlantic Ocean ~100 miles (160 km) SE of Naval Air Station Pomona, New Jersey, just outside Delaware Bay E of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and S of Wildwood and Cape May, New Jersey. The aircraft was carrying three weapons and one nuclear capsule; the weapons were in Complete Assembly for Ferry (CAF) condition. Nuclear components were not installed; power supplies were installed but not connected. The C-124 was en route from Dover AFB, Delaware, to Europe via the Azores islands when its two port engines lost power. Maximum power was applied to the two starboard engines, however, level flight could not be maintained. The crew decided to jettison one weapon at an altitude of 4,500 feet (1,400 m) ~75 miles (121 km) off the coast of New Jersey. The second weapon was jettisoned soon afterwards at an altitude of 2,500 feet (760 m) at a distance of 50 miles (80 km) from the New Jersey coast. No detonation was seen to occur from either weapon, and both bombs were presumed to have been damaged or destroyed on impact with the sea and to have sunk almost instantly. The C-124 landed at an airfield in the vicinity of Atlantic City, New Jersey, with the remaining weapon and the nuclear capsule aboard. After a three-month long search, neither the weapons nor any debris were located. By November 1957, the AEC was taking action to issue replacement weapons to the DOD. No public announcement of this incident was made at the time it happened.


 * 1950 – The first scheduled passenger service flown by a gas-turbine powered airliner (turboprop) is British European Airway’s (British European Airways) Vickers V. 630 Viscount.


 * 1950 – A U. S. Air Force B-29 Superfortress mistakenly shoots down a British Seafire of No. 800 Squadron from HMS Triumph off Korea, apparently mistaking it for a Yak-9


 * 1945 – Task Force 38 carrier aircraft again carry out heavy airstrikes against targets in the Inland Sea without meeting aerial opposition. They sink the aircraft carrier Amagi, the battleships Haruna and Ise, and the obsolete armored cruiser Izumo and damage the aircraft carriers Katsuragi and Kaiyo. In addition, 548 U. S. Army Air Forces B-29 s drop 4,427 tons (4,016,148 kg) of bombs on Tsu and other cities in Japan.


 * 1945 – B-25 Empire State Building crash: A US Army Air Forces North American B-25D Mitchell bomber, 41-30577, named "Old John Feather Merchant", crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in fog at 0949 hrs., killing 3 on aircraft plus 11 on ground and causing over US$1 million in damage.


 * 1943 – For first time the No. 6 Group was able to send over 200 heavies to a single target as 234 aircraft visited Hamburg. It turned out to be a costly night as 22 aircraft failed to return.


 * 1943 – American Airlines Flight 63 (Flagship Ohio), a Douglas DC-3, loses control due to severe turbulence and violent downdrafts and crashes near Trammel, Kentucky, killing twenty out of twenty-two people on board.


 * 1942 – (Overnight) 256 British bombers attack Hamburg, Germany, with the loss of 30 aircraft, an unacceptably high 11.7 percent loss rate.


 * 1941 – The Vichy government agrees to build German aircraft in France


 * 1938 – Pan American World Airways Flight 229, a Martin M-130 flying boat named the Hawaii Clipper, disappears westbound from Guam to Manila with 6 passengers and 9 crew


 * 1935 – The Boeing Model 299 (XB-17), prototype of the B-17, makes its first flight at Boeing Field in Seattle. Newspaper reporters nickname it “The Flying Fortress. ”


 * 1934 – Nelly Diener becomes Europe’s first air stewardess.


 * 1933 – Dr. Albert Forsythe and Charles Alfred “Chief” Anderson land at Atlantic City to complete the first return flight to the West Coast by African-American pilots.


 * 1918 – Royal Air Force Sopwith Dolphin E4449 flown by Tone Bayetto crashed in Hampshire, England when the wings folded back and it dived into the ground from 200 feet.


 * 1913 – A Caudron G.3 amphibian takes off from a platform aboard the Hermes while she is underway and lands at Great Yarmouth.


 * 1914 – Royal Naval Air Service Squadron Commander Arthur M. Longmore successfully releases a 14-inch (356-mm) torpedo from a Short Admiralty Type 81 floatplane. It may be the first successful aerial launch of a torpedo, although Captain Alessandro Guidoni of Italy’s drop of a dummy torpedo from the experimental Pateras Pescara monoplane in “mid-1914″ may have been ëarlier.


 * 1914 – outbreak of World War I Aviation changes war in a twofold way. The aeroplane turns the sky into a new battle field where about 20,000 flyers, most of them trained pilots die. Aircraft eliminate the distinction between frontline and hinterland, with the civilian population far behind the frontline also becoming a target.


 * 1858 – Nadar takes first airborne photo (in a balloon).