Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/March 12

March 12


 * 2012 – A Russian Air Force Kamov Ka-52 on a training flight crashes at Bolshaya Kiselen in western Russia, killing one crew at the scene and the other crew member died in hospital. This was the first accident involving the Ka-52.


 * 2010 – Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771, a scheduled international passenger flight, crashed at about 06:10 local time (04:10 UTC) on approach to Tripoli International Airport. Of the 104 passengers and crew on board, the sole survivor was 9-year-old Dutch boy Ruben van Assouw.


 * 2009 – A Sikorsky S-92A Helicopter (C-GZCH) flying from St. John's International Airport, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada to the offshore SeaRose FPSO in the White Rose oil field was forced to ditch in the North Atlantic Ocean, 30 nmi east-southeast of Newfoundland. The Sikorsky S-92 owned by Cougar Helicopters issued a mayday after experiencing low oil pressure in the main gear-box and requesting emergency clearance to return to St.John's airport.  The aircraft ditched in the North Atlantic approximately 10 minutes after issuing the mayday at 7:58 am ET resulting in 17 fatalities and 1 passenger rescued from the crash site.


 * 2008 – Southwest Airlines grounds 44 aircraft for inspections, days after the FAA accuses as many as 117 of its 737 s of flying without proper airworthiness certificates.


 * 2007 – Continental Airlines increases their Boeing 787 order from 20 to 25, adding five of the 787-9 series.


 * 2007 – The first two Joint Fighter-17 aircraft were delivered to the Pakistan Air Force.


 * 2004 – First flight of the Embraer ERJ-190


 * 1998 – A C-141 from the 445th Airlift Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, landed at Randolph AFB, Texas, with more than 50 former U. S. prisoners of war for Operation Homecoming’s silver anniversary. On Feb. 12, 1973, the same C-141 airlifted Americans from Gia Lam Airport, Hanoi, North Vietnam on the first mission to repatriate American servicemen from Southeast Asia. The Starlifter took the men to Randolph AFB, for the 25th annual “Freedom Flyers” reunion.


 * 1998 – First test flight of the X-38, a spacecraft design planned for use as a future International Space Station emergency crew return “lifeboat”.


 * 1993 – The Blizzard of 1993, also known as the “Storm of the Century” begins its two days of havoc along the east coast of North America. Nearly every airport stretching from Nova Scotia to Georgia is closed at some point during the 30 h storm.


 * 1980 – 12-14 – Two B-52 Stratofortresses make a non-stop round-the-world flight in 42.5 hours


 * 1979 – Atlantic Southeast Airlines is founded.


 * 1975 – An Air Vietnam Douglas DC-4 (XV-NUJ) is shot down by a surface-to-air missile in Pleiku, Vietnam, killing all 26 souls aboard.


 * 1969 – The Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne test programme suffers a setback when the rotor on prototype #3, 66-8828, hits the fuselage and kills the pilot. The accident occurs on a test flight where the pilot was to manipulate the controls to excite 0.5P oscillations (or half-P hop) in the rotor. 0.5P is a vibration that happens once per two main rotor revolutions, where P is the rotor rotational speed. The accident investigation noted that safety mechanisms on the controls had apparently been disabled for the flight. The investigation concluded that the pilot-induced oscillations had set up a resonant vibration that exceeded the rotor system's ability to compensate. After the investigation, the rotor and control systems would be modified to prevent the same problem from occurring again. The rotor blades and control system were stiffened, the mass of the gyro was increased, and the geometry of the rotor was adjusted.


 * 1960 – A Boeing B-47E-35-DT Stratojet, 52-1414, of the 545th Bomb Squadron, 384th Bomb Wing, is overstressed, exploding in mid-air over Little Rock, Arkansas, at ~0645 hrs., debris falling on neighbourhoods of the city, setting many houses afire. Only the co-pilot, Lt. Thomas G. Smoak, 26, survived, parachuting after being thrown clear of the explosion; two other crew and a passenger died, plus two civilians on the ground. The dead crewmen were Capt. Herbert Aldridge, 37, aircraft commander; Lt. Col. Reynolds S. Watson, 43, navigator, and S/Sgt. Kenneth E. Brose, 25 (passenger). Civilian victims were Mrs. Andrew L. Clark, 62, who was alone in her home at 211 Colonial Court, where a major portion of the plane fell, and James LaRoy Hollabaugh, 29, adopted son of Mrs. Agnes Nilsson Grove of 1920 Maryland Avenue. Both of those houses were destroyed by fire but Mrs. Grove escaped with burns on her feet and abrasions on her legs. "Smoak came to rest entangled in a tree behind the house at 509 Midland Street. He spoke rationally to rescuers who had watched his parachute fall but was in a severe shock. He received emergency treatment on the spot from a physician who lived in the neighbourhood and was taken to Arkansas Baptist Hospital. His wife is a nurse at Arkansas Children's Hospital, two blocks from the Maryland - Summit crash scene. The scene of the heaviest destruction to property was at the intersection of Maryland and Summit Avenues. Two homes, that of Mrs. Marie Milligan at 824 Summit and that of Mrs. Grove, and an apartment building of three units on the south-east corner were destroyed by fire."


 * 1959 – First flight of the Aero Boero AB-95
 * 1955 – First flight of the Aérospatiale Alouette II
 * 1953 – A RAF Avro Lincoln, RF531, 'C', of Central Gunnery School, is shot down 20 mi (32 km) NE of Lüneburg, Germany by a Soviet MiG-15 as it flies to Berlin on a training flight, resulting in the deaths of the seven crew members.
 * 1951 – First flight of the Fairey Delta 1 delta-wing research aircraft
 * 1950 – The Llandow air disaster: An Airflight Avro 689 Tudor V stalls and crashes after the rear cargo hold was overloaded, resulting in a center of gravity exceeding the aft limit; 80 out of the 83 people on board die, at the time the worst air disaster in history.
 * 1948 – Northwest Airlines Flight 4422, a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, crashes into Mount Sanford in the Alaska Territory, killing 30; wreckage was not located until 1999.
 * 1947 – First flight of the Douglas Cloudster II
 * 1943 – (Overnight) The second Royal Air Force Bomber Command raid on Essen during the Battle of the Ruhr is even more destructive than the first one of March 5–6.
 * 1942 – (Overnight) 68 British Wellington bombers raid Kiel, Germany, losing five of their number.
 * 1938 – First flight of the PZL.44 Wicher
 * 1938 – Junkers Ju 52's carry German troops to Vienna during the German Anschluss against Austria.
 * 1932 – New landing aids are installed in Newark, New Jersey, at the busiest airport in the world, to supplement the night landing facilities already in existence there. In 1930 alone there were some 28,000 landings and the airport handled 20,000 passengers. Opened on October 1, 1928, Newark Liberty International Airport, the metropolitan region’s first major airport, was built by the City of Newark on 68 acres of marshland and quickly became the world's busiest commercial airport. During World War II, the Army Air Corps operated it. In 1948, the Port Authority assumed responsibility for operation and development.
 * 1930 – William George Barker VC, dies in a crash at Rockcliffe.
 * 1916 – A Burgess H biplane (No. 28) sets a world endurance record for a pilot and two passengers by remaining in the air for 7 hours 5 minutes. This particular airplane was modified by Grover C. Loening at the army training school in San Diego.
 * 1908 – AEA Red Wing, flying from the surface of Keuka Lake near Hammondsport, New York. Flight distance is 97.2 m (319 ft) but ends with the aircraft collapsing to the ground, leaving the pilot slightly bruised. This is the first public demonstration of a powered aircraft flight in the United States.