Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/June 16

June 16


 * 2013 – Solar Impulse aircraft HB-SIA completes the fourth leg of its flight across the continental United States, completing the fourth leg's second segment, a 702-kilometer (436-mile) trip from Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, Ohio – from which it had departed on 15 June after an 11-hour stopover – to Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia outside Washington, D.C. The flight takes 14 hours 4 minutes at an average speed of 50 km/h (31 mph) and reaches a maximum altitude of 3,048 meters (10,000 feet). During its stay, the aircraft is placed on temporary display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center adjacent to the airport.


 * 2011 – The Russian Federation’s flag carrier Aeroflot puts its first Sukhoi Superjet 100 into service.


 * 2010 – Trans States Airlines Flight 8050, operated by Embraer ERJ-145 N847HK overran the runway at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport and was substantially damaged when the nose gear collapsed.


 * 2009 – Two Spanish Air Force McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18 Hornets collide in midair near the Canary Islands, Spain. Both pilots eject safely.


 * 1984 – Frontier Airlines pilot Emily Warner and co-pilot Barbara Cook make history by directing the first all-female commercial airline crew, on a flight from Denver to Lexington, Kentucky.


 * 1963 – Vostok 6 launched. The pilot is Valentina Tereshkova, first woman cosmonaut.


 * 1963 – During the Paris Air Show, first prototype Hawker Siddeley P.1127, XP831, flown by A. W. "Bill" Bedford, is demonstrating low level hovering when a tiny fragment of debris fouls a nozzle actuating motor causing the aircraft to lose height rapidly and crash. Pilot unhurt and the airframe is repaired. Upon retirement, this historic airframe is preserved in the Sir Sydney Camm Memorial Hall at the RAF Museum, Hendon.


 * 1961 – Royal Canadian Navy pilot SubLt. I.K. Rassow is killed when he flies his McDonnell F2H-3 Banshee, BuNo 126434 of VF-870, into a rocky knoll during aerobatic practice near Indian Harbour, Nova Scotia.


 * 1959 – A US Navy Martin P4M Mercator is attacked by North Korean Air Force Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17s off the North Korean coast. The Mercator's crew returned the aircraft safely to Japan.


 * 1956 – A USAF MATS Douglas C-124A Globemaster II, 51-5183, inbound to Enewetak Atoll, Pacific Ocean, carrying nuclear test device components (possibly for the EGG device fired during the Operation Redwing Mohawk test) crashed 421 feet (128 m) short of, and eight feet below, the runway at Enewetak Island, shearing off its landing gear and coming to rest 2,000 feet (610 m) from the southeast end of the runway. Fire ensued, extinguished within three hours. No loss of life – most of the cargo, although damaged by water and foam, was recovered. The runway was cleared of wreckage and reopened to normal traffic before noon on 17 June:. Salvage of certain aircraft components was accomplished by a team from Hickam AFB, Hawaii.


 * 1955 – As part of an attempted coup against President Juan Perón, Argentine Naval Aviation and Argentine Air Force aircraft bomb and strafe the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires and the adjacent Plaza de Mayo while a large crowd is gathered there to express support for Perón, killing 364 people and injuring over 800. The bombing of Plaza de Mayo is the largest aerial bombing ever to take place in mainland Argentina.


 * 1954 – First flight of the Lockheed XFV (first official flight)


 * 1952 – June 16-17 – Soviet Air Force MiG-15 s shoot down a Royal Swedish Air Force C-47 Dakota on an intelligence gathering mission over the Baltic Sea, and the PBY Catalina that is sent to search for survivors.


 * 1950 – AThe McDonnell XF-88A Voodoo, 46-526, piloted by Gen. Frank K. Everest, is damaged in a belly landing after engine failure at Edwards AFB, California, this date. The XF-88A will eventually be sent to the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory to serve as a spares source in 1955 in support of flight testing of the XF-88B, 46-525, through 1956, after which both airframes are scrapped.


 * 1949 – Air France commences hourly flights from Paris to London


 * 1945 – The RCAF accepts its first Victory Aircraft built Lancaster X (FM101).


 * 1944 – 54 carrier aircraft of Task Groups 58.1 and 58.4 strike Iwo Jima, claiming 63 Japanese aircraft destroyed on the ground for the loss of one U. S. aircraft. Aircraft of other Task Force 58 task groups strike Japanese airfields on Guam and Tinian in an effort to neutralize them, but are unsuccessful in the face of strong antiaircraft defenses.


 * 1944 – The incomplete Italian aircraft carrier Aquila is damaged in an Allied air raid on Genoa.


 * 1943 – A Boeing B-17E-BO, converted to Boeing XB-38-VE, 41-2401, with Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled engines. Wrecked near Tipton, California, on its ninth test flight when the number three (starboard inner) engine caught fire. Attempts to extinguish it were unsuccessful, and as the fire spread to the wing, the pilots bailed out after pointing the aircraft to an uninhabited area. Lockheed test pilot George MacDonald was killed when his parachute did not deploy, and Lockheed test pilot Bud Martin was seriously injured when his parachute did not deploy properly.


 * 1943 – A raid by 94 Japanese aircraft – 24 Aichi D3 A (Allied reporting name “Val”) dive bombers and 70 Zero fighters – Attack U. S. shipping in Ironbottom Sound off Guadalcanal. They damage a cargo ship and a tank landing ship and shoot down six U. S. fighters, but almost all the Japanese aircraft are lost.


 * 1941 – USAAF Douglas O-38F, 33-324, c/n 1177, first aircraft to land at Ladd Field, Alaska, in October 1940, this aircraft flew various missions until it crashed on 16 June 1941, at 1450 hrs., due to engine failure about 70 miles (110 km) SE of Fairbanks. Uninjured, the pilot, Lt. Milton H. Ashkins, and his mechanic, Sgt. Raymond A. Roberts, hiked to safety after supplies were dropped to them. The abandoned aircraft remained in the Alaskan wilderness until the National Museum of the United States Air Force arranged for its recovery by a CH-47 Chinook helicopter from Fort Greeley on 10 June 1968. Despite being exposed to the Alaskan weather for 27 years, the aircraft remained in remarkable condition. Only the wings required extensive restoration.


 * 1941 – The Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron No. 411(F) formed in England with Spitfire Mk 1 A aircraft.


 * 1941 – National Airport (today Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) opens on land along the western shore of the Potomac River that technically belongs to Washington, D. C. In 1945, the United States Congress will redefine the land the airport occupies as being in Arlington, Virginia, to end confusion and disputes over local jurisdiction.


 * 1939 – Air France commences hourly flights from Paris to London


 * 1936 – The United States Coast Guard Cutter George W. Campbell (WPG-32) is the first Treasury-class cutter commissioned. The Treasury-class cutters are the first United States Coast Guard ships capable of carrying an airplane (a Grumman J2 F Duck, Curtiss SOC-4, or Waco J2 W-1 seaplane).


 * 1936 – The Havørn Accident (Norwegian: Havøyn-ulykken) was a controlled flight into terrain of a Junkers Ju 52 aircraft into the mountain Lihesten in Hyllestad, Norway on 16 June 1936 at 07:00. The aircraft, operated by Norwegian Air Lines, was en route from Bergen to Tromsø. The pilots were unaware that they were flying a parallel to the planned course, 15 to 20 km (9.3 to 12 mi) further east. The crew of four and three passengers were all killed in what was the first fatal aviation accident in Norway. The aircraft landed on a shelf on the mountain face. A first expedition found four bodies, but attempts to reach the shelf with the main part of the aircraft and three more bodies failed. A second party was sent out two days later, coordinated by Bernt Balchen and led by Boye Schlytter and Henning Tønsberg, saw the successful salvage of the remaining bodies.


 * 1932 – The Lockheed Aircraft Corp. finally closes down eight months after the receivers were called in to its parent company, Detroit Aircraft Corp. On June 21, investment broker Robert Ellsworth Gross leads a consortium that buys the assets and opens a new company under the same name.


 * 1926 – Entered Service: Armstrong Whitworth Argosy with Imperial Airways


 * 1924 – First flight of the Blériot-SPAD S.51


 * 1922 – 1922 – Henry Berliner demonstrates a primitive helicopter to the US Navy.


 * 1921 – First flight of the Blériot-SPAD S.46


 * 1917 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin L 40, LZ88, damaged beyond repair in a failed landing at Nordholz.


 * 1909 – A two-day celebration in Dayton, Ohio marks the homecoming of the Wrights.


 * 1909 – First US airplane sold commercially, by Glenn Curtiss for $5,000.