Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/March 14

March 14


 * 2008 – An Lockheed Martin F-16C Block 25D Fighting Falcon, 84-1273, flown by pilot 2nd Lt. David J. Mitchell, 26, of Amherst, Ohio, crashes during training mission in a remote area three miles (5 km) S of Alamo Lake, Arizona. His body is located in a ravine near the aircraft wreckage. Mitchell, of the Ohio Air National Guard's 180th Fighter Wing at Toledo Express Airport, Swanton, Ohio, was assigned to the 62d Fighter Squadron at Luke AFB, Arizona since November 2007 as a student pilot. He had 237 total flying hours, ~26 in the F-16.


 * 2006 – Helios Airways was renamed to ajet.


 * 1995 – An Aeroflot Antonov An-12 crashes near Baku after running out of fuel. Crew negligence is blamed, and it is suggested that the flight crew were drunk.


 * 1984 – Marc Garneau named the first Canadian astronaut.


 * 1980 – LOT Flight 7, an Ilyushin Il-62, crashes near Warsaw, Poland after the No. 2 engine disintegrates and severs the elevator and rudder control lines; all 87 on board are killed.


 * 1979 – A British-built Trident aircraft crashed into a factory in Beijing, China killing an estimated 200 people, including a dozen crew and passengers and scores of victims in the factory.


 * 1972 – Sterling Airways Flight 296, a Sud Caravelle, crashes near Kalba, United Arab Emirates due to pilot error; all 112 on board die in the worst air disaster in the history of the United Arab Emirates.


 * 1972 – Two USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs have mid-air collision over the town of El Buste, Spain, about 30 miles from the joint US-Spanish base at Zaragoza. All four crewmen are KWF. Debris showered down onto the town, damaging communications and starting several roof fires, but no injuries to townspeople. Aircraft were returning to base in strong winds and broken clouds after a routine gunnery mission.


 * 1961 – 1961 Yuba City B-52 crash: Failure of a cabin pressurization system forces USAF Boeing B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress, 57-0166, c/n 464155, to fly low, accelerating fuel-burn, bomber has fuel starvation at 10,000 feet over Yuba City, California, crashes, killing aircraft commander. Two nuclear weapons on board tear loose on impact but no explosion or contamination takes place.


 * 1960 – Within a year of completion of a major expansion program, Chicago’s O’Hare International airport has become the busiest terminal in the US, handling 10.2 million passengers in 1959, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) reports. In the same year it handled 431,600 take-offs and landings.


 * 1957 – British European Airways Flight 411, a Vickers Viscount, crashes while on approach to Manchester Airport, killing all 20 on board and 2 on the ground.


 * 1957 – Sikorsky HO4S-3, 55892, c/n 55-892, of the Royal Canadian Navy, ditches off the coast of Key West, Florida. Crew rescued by USS Cromwell.


 * 1951 – RAF Coastal Command Avro Lancaster GR.3, TX264, 'BS-D', of 120 Squadron RAF Kinloss, off-course in high winds and heavy overcast during a night-time navigation exercise between the Faroes and Rockall, crashes into Beinn Eighe's Triple Buttress at ~0200 hrs., just 15 feet (4.6 m) below the top of the 2,850-foot (870 m) westernmost gully of the buttress known as Coire Mhic Fhercair in the Scottish Highlands, killing all eight crew. Wreck not found until 17 March, crew remains not recovered until August. Due to remoteness of the crashsite the wreckage is still there.


 * 1947 – Saudi Arabian Airlines begins regular services.


 * 1947 – First flight of the Lockheed L-749 Constellation


 * 1946 – The last operation for the Canadian 435 (T) squadron was from Down Ampney England. With 15,681 sorties, 28,792 operational hours and 2734 non-operational hours. They airlifted 27,460 tons of freight, 14,000 passengers and had 851 casualties.


 * 1946 – The Royal Canadian Navy commissions its first aircraft carrier, HMCS Warrior (CVL 20), which the United Kingdom has transferred to Canada. She will serve until replaced by HMCS Magnificent (CVL 21) in 1948.


 * 1945 – The first prototype of two of the experimental Cornelius XFG-1-CR fuel glider, 44-28059, crashes 3 miles W of Wilmington, Ohio during spin testing out of Clinton County Army Air Field, Ohio, killing test pilot Alfred Reitherman of the Spartan Aircraft Company which constructed the design. The fuel glider concept (to be towed behind bombers) is abandoned at the end of the war.


 * 1945 – 13-14 – An Avro Lancaster of No. 617 Squadron RAF drops the first 22,000 lb (9,980 kg) Grand Slam bomb


 * 1936 – Imperial Airways opens a weekly service to Hong Kong.


 * 1927 – First flight of the Parnall Pike N202


 * 1927 – Pan American Airways is formed to carry airmail on the Key West-Havana route.


 * 1910 – Louis Paulhan flies 146 km in a straight route from Orleans to Trois.


 * 1908 – Henri Farman makes the first flight in his modified Voisin-Farman I-bis, the biplane built by Voisin brothers.


 * 1889 – German Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his “Navigable Balloon”.


 * 1885 – Raoul Lufbery, American World War I pilot, was born (d. 1918). Lufbery was a French-American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I. Because he served in both the French and later the United States Army Air Service in World War I, he is sometimes listed as a French ace and sometimes as an American ace, though all but one of his 17 combat victories came while flying in French units.