Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/June 29

June 29


 * 2012 – A United States Navy MH-53 of HM-14 was destroyed fire after an emergency landing near Pohang, South Korea, all 12 on-board vacated the helicopter safely.


 * 2012 – Six Uyghur men armed with aluminum crutches and explosives attempt to hijack Tianjin Airlines Flight 7554, an Embraer ERJ-190 on a flight from Hotan to Ürümqi, China, with 95 other people aboard. The crew and other passengers resist them and foil the hijacking attempt. Two hijackers are killed and 13 people (two hijackers, two security officers, two flight attendants, and seven passengers) are injured, and the plane returns safely to Hotan.


 * 2011 – KLM becomes the first airline in the world to provide flights using biofuel.


 * 2011 – The French military confirms that it had air-dropped weapons in early June to Libyan rebels fighting in the highlands south of Tripoli, which Russia and the African Union in particular argue was in violation of the arms embargo against Libya under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.


 * 2009 – PK-BRO, a DHC-6 Twin Otter operated by Aviastar Mandiri, crashes on approach to Wamena Airport, Indonesia, killing all three crew.


 * 2007 – The plane of the Prime Minister of the Ivory Coast Guillaume Soro was attacked by unknown Friday morning with the airport of Bouaké (center), an act insulated which made at least four died, but saved Mr. Soro, and thrown a cold on the process of reconciliation in progress in the country. Ivory Coast Prime Minister Guillaume Soro survived a rocket attack on his plane after it landed at an airport in the central town of Bouake, said spokesman Issa Doumbia.


 * 2007 – First flight of the Piasecki X-49


 * 2004 – Northwest Airlines Flight 327 was a flight from the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Michigan to the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California. This event happened aboard N543US, a Boeing 757-200. The suspicious behaviour of a party of 13 Syrian musicians, on their way to an engagement in San Diego, alarmed flight attendants and passengers and raised concerns that they were observing a terrorist attack or a dry run test.


 * 1995 – First flight of the Bell 407


 * 1977 – Italian Professor Enrico Forlanini’s steam-powered helicopter is tested at Alexandria, Egypt.


 * 1972 – In the 1972 Lake Winnebago mid-air collision, North Central Airlines Flight 290, a Convair CV-580, and Air Wisconsin Flight 671, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, collide over Lake Winnebago near Appleton, Wisconsin, killing all 13 people on board the two aircraft.


 * 1972 – Forward air controller and OV-10 Bronco pilot Capt. Steven L. Bennett lost his life after a gun battle with Viet Cong gun positions, and was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor.


 * 1966 – For the first time, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration authorizes attacks on industrial targets in northeastern North Vietnam and on North Vietnam’s entire petroleum, oil, and lubricants system.


 * 1966 – The U. S. Air Force bombs Hanoi for the first time


 * 1963 – First flight of the Saab 105


 * 1962 – First flight of the Vickers VC10, an Evolution of the long-range British airliner.


 * 1960 – Entered Service: English Electric Lightning with the Royal Air Force’s No. 74 Squadron at RAF Coltishall


 * 1955 – The first operational B-52 Stratofortress was delivered to the 93rd Bombardment Wing, Heavy, at Castle Air Force Base, Merced, California.


 * 1948 – The Air Parcel Post Bill becomes U. S. law, establishing domestic air parcel post and raising first class postage rates for air mail from five cents to six cents.


 * 1945 – Messerschmitt test pilot Ludwig "Willie" Hofman ("Hoffman" in American source) attempts to ferry captured Messerschmitt Me 262A1a/U4, Werke Nummer 170083, originally coded V-083, named Happy Hunter/Wilma Jeanne II, from Lagerlechfeld, near Augsburg, Germany, to Airfield A-55 near Cherbourg, France on behalf of the USAAF Air Technical Intelligence ("Watson's Whizzers") for loading aboard the HMS Reaper, suffers catastrophic failure of starboard engine at ~9,000 feet altitude and is forced to bail out over Normandy, suffering massive bruising as he deploys parachute at high speed. Aircraft was one of two conversions carrying Rheinmetall BK-5 50 mm anti-tank gun in nose for bomber attack, although it was never used operationally. American sergeant admits a year later that he had failed to inspect this aircraft's engines before the flight.


 * 1944 – Republic P-47D-1-RA Thunderbolt, 42-22331, c/n 82, accepted March 30, 1943, of C Flight, 1st AF / 1st FG / E Section / 124th Base Unit (Fighter), "A-362", from Bluethenthal AAF, piloted by 2nd Lt. Robert B Boyd, Jr., makes gear-up crash landing on Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. Abandoned in place, the hulk of the wings and lower fuselage is uncovered by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Now stored at the Carolinas Aviation Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina.


 * 1941 – Curtiss XSO2C-1 Seagull, BuNo 0950, crashed at NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C.. To mechanics school at NAS Jacksonville, Florida.


 * 1939 – During another Khalkhin Gol Incident dogfight between Soviet and Japanese aircraft, the Soviets claim to have shot down 25 Japanese planes in exchange for the loss of two Soviet aircraft.


 * 1939 – Dixie Clipper completes First commercial plane flight to Europe.


 * 1934 – June 29-30 – Benjamin and Joseph Adamowicz brothers, amateur pilots, flew across the Atlantic


 * 1927 – June 29 – July 1 – Richard Evelyn Byrd with crew flies Fokker F.VIIa/3 m "America" from New York City to France.


 * 1927 – First flight from West Coast arrives in Hawaii.


 * 1927 – Flight Lieutenant G. E. Brooks, flying in an Avro 504 K conducts the first flight test of Wallace Turnbull’s variable-pitch propeller, a major Canadian innovation in aviation technology.


 * 1914 – Glenn Curtiss takes up nine passengers in New York in his seaplane America, built for Rodman Wanamaker, to make an attempt on the £10,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail for the first transatlantic crossing in a heavier-than-air machine.


 * 1909 – In opening demonstration flights before the U. S. Army at Fort Myer, Virginia, Orville Wright makes the first flight with the new Wright A built to replace the one destroyed in September 1908.


 * 1900 – Antoine de Saint-Exupery, aviator and writer was born.