Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/July 6

July 6


 * 2013 – Asiana Airlines Flight 214, a Boeing 777, crashes short of the runway on landing at San Francisco International Airport, killing three of 307 on board and injuring 182. The crash is the first fatal accident involving the Boeing 777, the first fatal accident in the United States since 2009, and the first fatal accident in North America involving a major airline since 2001.


 * 2013 – Despite suffering a mid-flight tear in its wing, Solar Impulse HB-SIA flies 495 km (307 miles) from Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia outside Washington, D.C., to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City in 18 hours 23 minutes at an average speed-over-ground of 27 km/h (16.8 mph) and reaching a maximum altitude of 3,110 meters (10,203 feet), becoming the first solar-powered aircraft to fly across the contiguous United States. During the 64-day journey, which had begun on 3 May at Moffett Field in California, HB-SIA has made five intermediate stops and covered 5,659 km (3,514 miles) in 105 hours 42 minutes in the air at an average speed-over-ground of 53.5 km/h (33.2 mph).


 * 2011 – The 2011 Silk Way Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 crash: An Ilyushin Il-76 crashes into a mountain 25 kilometers short of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, killing all 9 people on board the cargo flight from Baku, operated on behalf of NATO.


 * 2009 – Death of Marius Eriksen, Norwegian skier, WWII fighter ace, model and actor.


 * 2008 – Death of Joseph Otis Fletcher, American Air Force pilot and polar researcher, first pilot to land at the North pole along with William Pershing Benedict with a C-47.


 * 2007 – First flight of the Epic Victory


 * 1998 – Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport was closed at 1:28 am with the lights of its 13/31 runway being switched off. Operation of the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok commenced on the same day, with the first commercial flight landing at 6:25 am.


 * 1996 – Delta Air Lines Flight 1288, a McDonnell Douglas MD-88, experiences an uncontained engine failure during takeoff on Runway 17 at Pensacola, Florida. Fragments from the number one (left) Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 turbofan engine penetrated the fuselage, killing two and seriously injuring one of the 148 people on board.


 * 1993 – Death of Olive Ann Beech, U. S. aviation pioneer and businesswoman, who founded the Beech Aircraft Company with her husband Walter Herschel Beech.


 * 1992 – The final F-4 Phantom IIs are retired from Royal Air Force service.


 * 1989 – One of two McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagles of the 33rd TFW, Eglin AFB, Florida, engaged in 2V2 (two versus 2) aerial combat maneuvers with two Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcons of the Alabama Air National Guard, crashes at 1456 hrs. near Lamison, Alabama a small community ~80 miles SW of Montgomery, the pilot, Capt. Leo Moore of the 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron, ejecting safely. Moore, unhurt, is rescued less than an hour later, said Sandy Mau, a Selma Times-Journal reporter, by an Air National Guard helicopter vectored to him from Danley Field by the F-16 pilots who were flying close enough to Moore to pinpoint his location, said S/Sgt. Dave Beaulieu, 33rd TFW spokesman. Tim Henderson, of nearby Millers Ferry, said that he saw Moore's jet flying low across his pasture minutes before the crash. "It was flying maybe a little over the treetops, very low", Henderson said. "He wasn't flying very fast to be flying so low, and it kind of sounded like the engine was cutting out." The fighter impacted on a ridge in a rural, virtually inaccessible area and Air Force investigators were having difficulty reaching the site, said Mau. The Eagle was completely destroyed. "It just burned up", said Beaulieu. The two F-15s had departed from Eglin at ~1410 hrs. to rendezvous with the F-16s. Moore's fighter was carrying an inert infrared-guided Sidewinder, Beaulieu said. He didn't know how much training the airmen got in before the crash, which occurred ~120 miles NE of Eglin. The pilot underwent a medical check at Eglin regional Hospital and then was sent home, said Beaulieu. "He's fine. He's pretty shaken up, but doing well."


 * 1982 – After the engine fire warning lights illuminate for two of their Ilyushin Il-62′s four engines shortly after takeoff from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, the pilots of Aeroflot Flight 411 shut down the engines and attempt to return to the airport on their two remaining engines. The plane crashes in a field in Mendeleyevo, killing all 90 people on board. The engine fire warnings are later reported to be have been false alarms.


 * 1982 – A United States Navy F-4S crashed off USS Forrestal following failure of the catapult strap, pilot missing.


 * 1980 – The largest light airplane meet outside the United States brings 750 small planes to the Popular Flying Associations annual meeting in Leicester.


 * 1976 – Launch of Soyuz 21, Soviet manned mission to the Salyut 5 space station.


 * 1965 – The 1965 Little Baldon Hastings accident occurred when a Handley Page Hastings C1 A transport aircraft operated by No. 36 Squadron Royal Air Force, registration TG577, crashed into a field in Little Baldon, near Chiselhampton, Oxfordshire, shortly after taking off from RAF Abingdon. All 41 aboard, including six crew, perished in the crash, making it the third worst air crash in the United Kingdom at the time.


 * 1964 – U. S. Marine Corps UH-34D transport helicopters airlift a 93-man relief force during the Battle of Nam Dong in South Vietnam.


 * 1960 – Sikorsky’s S-62 amphibious helicopter wins federal approval for operation as a commercial passenger aircraft.


 * 1960 – Goodyear ZPG-3W, BuNo 144242, lost hull pressure, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off of New Jersey, eighteen of twenty-one crew lost. This was the last U.S. Navy lighter-than-air loss as it leads to cancellation of airship operations on 28 June 1961. Contributing reason of suspension of airship operations is improved speed of Soviet subs.


 * 1959 – A USAF Douglas C-124A-DL Globemaster II, 49-254A, c/n 43183, Jumbo 14, of the 3d Strategic Support Squadron, Strategic Air Command, Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, is involved in a Broken Arrow when it crashes on takeoff from that base at 1411 hrs. CST, two minutes after the start of the takeoff roll, coming down 3,300 feet (1,000 m) S and slightly to the right of runway 14. The cargo load of an unspecified number and type of nuclear weapons was to be transported to Little Rock AFB, Arkansas. One weapon was destroyed by the post-crash fire which also burned out the airframe. No nuclear or high explosive detonation occurred, and contamination was limited to a confined area directly below the weapon. Six flight crew of crew R-41, and one substitution, all survived the crash. Although they denied any knowledge of engine malfunctions during the takeoff roll, witnesses stated that one or more engines were after firing or backfired from the beginning of the roll throughout the entire flight. After approximately 6,000 feet (1,800 m) of ground roll, the airframe assumed a nose high attitude as it climbed to between 50 and 100 feet (30 m), with one or more engines after firing excessively during the climb. The aircraft leveled off briefly before again assuming a nose high attitude when it then settled back to earth amidst smoke and dust. An intense fire then broke out (the aircraft was carrying ~5,000 gallons of fuel). After firefighters extinguished the blaze, weapons were removed using a M246 wrecker and a 40-foot (12 m) trailer.


 * 1952 – Death of Carl Oskar Ursinus, pioneer of German aviation and is remembered mainly for his contributions to sailplane designs and the sport of gliding. He has been nicknamed the Rhönvater ("Rhön father") because he founded Germany’s first gliding club at the Wasserkuppe in the Rhön Mountains. He also pursued experiments in human-powered flight.


 * 1952 – Death of Maryse Bastié, Born Marie-Louise Bombec, French Aerobatic and raid aviator, Crashing with the 2nd prototype Nord 2501 Noratlas in Lyon-Bron, France.


 * 1951 – aerial refueling is used under combat conditions for the first time, with a KB-29 Superfortress refueling four RF-80 Shooting Stars over North Korea


 * 1950 – U. S. Navy Patrol Squadron 46 (VP-46), based at Buckner Bay, Okinawa, begins maritime air patrols of the Taiwan Strait and coast of China to guard against any People’s Republic of China action against Taiwan while the Korean War is raging.


 * 1948 – The US Navy's first two carrier-based AEW squadrons are formed, VAW-1 and VAW-2.


 * 1947 – First flight of the Dassault MD 315 Flamant, French light twin-engined transport airplane.


 * 1943 – A strike by 39 U. S. aircraft destroys a Japanese destroyer beached on Kolombangara island after the Battle of Kula Gulf.


 * 1940 – Twelve Swordfish aircraft from Ark Royal make a torpedo strike against Mers-el-Kébir, sinking a French patrol boat and badly damaging the beached battlecruiser Dunkerque. It is the most successful aerial torpedo attack against a capital ship in history at the time.


 * 1939 – Olga Klepikowa sets a world record by flying an Antonow RF-7 glider 746 km (466 miles) from Moscow to Otradnoje.


 * 1939 – First Autogyro air mail service. Eastern Air Lines, from Philadelphia Post Office to Camden NJ, in a Kellett KD-1 B.


 * 1938 – First flight of The Loire-Nieuport LN.401, French-built dive bomber aircraft.


 * 1937 – A Spanish Republican offensive against Brunete begins, supported by 300 aircraft; the Republicans will use Polikarpov I-15 fighters at night for the first time during the battle, opposing night-bombing German Heinkel He 111 bombers. The Nationalists redeploy German aircraft of the Condor Legion from north to central Spain to support Nationalist ground forces around Brunete.


 * 1935 – Birth of Muhammad Mahmood Alam, Pakistani fighter pilot and North American F-86 Sabre Flying ace.


 * 1934 – French Francois and Génin win the Bibesco cup at an average speed of 313.4 km/h with the A. N. F. Les Mureaux 112 GR raid prototype.


 * 1927 – The crash/ditching in the Pacific Ocean ~1 mi off of Fort DeRussy, Territory of Hawaii, of Boeing PW-9A, 26-353, of the 19th Pursuit Squadron, from Wheeler Field, Oahu, kills Arizona native 1st Lt. Charles Linton Williams (1898–1927). Higley Field, at Mesa, Arizona, is renamed Williams Field on 24 February 1942, and Williams Air Force Base in January 1948. The base was closed on 30 December 1993.


 * 1926 – First flight of the Macchi M.39


 * 1924 – Robert Michael White, NYC, test pilot (X-15) was born.


 * 1922 – The first use of naval aircraft in combat in Latin America takes place in Brazil during the first Tenente revolt when two Brazilian Navy aircraft bomb the rebellious Fort Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro.


 * 1919 – The first person to arrive in the United States by air from Europe is Englishman Flt. Lt. J. E. M. Pritchard. He arrives with the airship R.34, which has entered American skies after leaving Scotland on July 2 to cross the North Atlantic.


 * 1915 – Lt Oswald Boelcke claims his first victory, a Blériot Parasol, while flying an Albatros C.I two-seater with Lt von Wühlisch as the observer & gunner.


 * 1914 – Death of Georges Legagneux, early French aviator who set altitude records, in the crash of his monoplane near Saumur, France.


 * 1892 – Birth of Willy Omer Francois Jean Coppens, Belgium's leading fighter ace and the champion "balloon buster" of WWI.


 * 1866 – First South American military balloon reconnaissance ascent. The 6th of July, Lieutenant Colonel Roberto A. Chodasiewicz, an Argentine Army military engineer, makes the first South American military observation ascent, manning a Brazilian Army’s captive ballon over Paraguayan troops, during the Triple Alliance War.


 * 1819 – First woman to be killed in an aviation accident: Sophie Blanchard, when her hydrogen-filled balloon caught fire and crashed to the ground.