Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/March 3

March 3


 * 2010 – A US Coast Guard Sikorsky MH-60T, an upgraded Sikorsky HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crashed in the remote Utah mountains. It was one of two traveling through the area en route to its home base in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, after performing security duty at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. The helicopters made a refueling stop in Salt Lake City and were headed to Leadville, Colorado, when the crash occurred about 50 miles (80 km) east of Salt Lake City. Three crewmen were airlifted to local hospitals and two others sustained minor injuries.


 * 2010 – An Republic of Korea Army MD Helicopters MD 500 helicopter crashed 20 km east of the capital Seoul, at around 2014 hrs. Helicopter hit a greenhouse in a rice paddy in Namyangju. The two crew members were rushed to a hospital but were later confirmed dead.


 * 2010 – An Azerbaijan Air Force Sukhoi Su-25 close air support aircraft crashed in the Shamkir district in northwest Azerbaijan at around 1700 hrs. local time, killing the pilot.


 * 2010 – An Indian Navy HAL Kiran crashed into building in Hyderabad during the air show/exhibition "India Aviation 2010". Both pilots and a civilian on the ground were killed. At least 5 other civilians also received injuries.


 * 2009 – Perimeter Aviation Flight 460, a Swearingen SA-226 TC Metroliner, registration C-FSLZ, makes a wheels-up landing at Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport, Canada. The same aircraft had an unsafe gear indication the previous day.


 * 2008 – An Iraqi Air Force Mil Mi-17 helicopter crashes in a dust storm near Bayji, Iraq, killing seven members of the IAF, as well as SSgt. Christopher S. Frost, 24, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, a USAF public affairs specialist who deployed to the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq from the 377th Air Base Wing at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico.


 * 2005 – A Westland Lynx mk.8 (Royal Navy) crashes during Gulf exercise. The three crew members survived. The Lynx is currently deployed to HMS Nottingham.


 * 2005 – The late Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly an airplane around the world solo nonstop without refueling, flying 25,000 miles in 67 hours and 2 min.


 * 2001 – An explosion in the center wing fuel tank destroys Thai Airways International Flight 114, a Boeing 737-4D7, on the ground while it is preboarding at Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. One person, a flight attendant is killed.


 * 2001 – A United States National Guard Short C-23B+ Sherpa (Shorts 360), 93-1336, of Florida Army National Guard Det. 1 H/171st AVN, based at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport, crashes during heavy rainstorm around 1100 hrs. in Unadilla, Georgia in the United States. All 21 people on board are killed. Aircraft was en route from Hurlburt Field, Florida to NAS Oceana, Virginia with Virginia Beach-based RED HORSE detachment on board who had been training at Hurlburt.


 * 1991 – United Airlines Flight 585, a Boeing 737, crashes while attempting to land at Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing all 25 people on board. The cause of the crash is not identified until the investigation into the crash of USAir Flight 427 in 1994; both crashes are eventually attributed to defects in a valve associated with the rudder.


 * 1991 – US Navy North American CT-39G Sabreliner, BuNo 160057, c/n 306-107, ex-N56798, crashed at 1145 hrs. in a neighborhood ~.5 miles S of NAS Glenview, Illinois, killing three crew, but missing houses. No one on ground was injured and witnesses said the pilot appeared to intentionally avoid structures, the jet coming down 20 feet from homes.


 * 1977 – AAeronautica Militare Italiana, Italian Air Force Lockheed C-130H Hercules MM61996, c/n 4492, '46-10', of the 46 Aerobrigata, crashed into Monte Serra, 15 kilometers E of Pisa, Italy.


 * 1974 – Turkish Airlines Flight 981, a Douglas DC-10, crashes in the Ermenonville forest near Senlis, France after the rear underfloor cargo door opens during flight; all 346 on board die.


 * 1973 – Balkan Bulgarian Airlines Flight 307, an Ilyushin Il-18, crashes short of the runway at Sheremetyevo International Airport, killing all 25 on board.


 * 1972 – Mohawk Airlines Flight 405, a Fairchild Hiller FH227B twin-engine turboprop, crashes near Albany, New York while descending to land, killing 16 of the 48 people on board and 1 on the ground.


 * 1969 – After a lengthy succession of taxi and runway tests, the first prototype Concorde 001 (F-WTSS) makes its first flight, with Andre Turcat at the controls. The flight lasts 29 min.


 * 1969 – The United States Navy establishes its Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar, California, to improve its fighter pilots’ dogfighting skills. The school will become popularly known as “TOPGUN. ”


 * 1969 – Apollo 9, the second manned launch of a Saturn V rocket, launches to spend 10 days in lower Earth orbit to test the lunar module’s behavior in space.


 * 1967 – First flight of the Beriev Be-30


 * 1965 – The United States begins Operation Blue Tree, medium-altitude photographic reconnaissance and bomb damage assessment flights over North Vietnam.


 * 1964 – The port side cargo door of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules explosively blows off the aircraft at 19,000 feet above the Smoky Mountain resort town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, carrying one crewman to his death and another hanging onto a chain outside the aircraft as the fuselage decompresses. Crew chief Jose Gallegoes, 32, was holding a length of chain attached to his bolted-down tool box when the access door blew off. "Something like an explosion happened and I found myself hanging out of the plane", the San Luis, Colorado man said later. "I was hanging by the chain with which I was securing the tool box. That chain saved my life", he said. His fellow crewmen pulled him back inside the cargo plane, but there was nothing they could do for the as yet unidentified crewman who fell to his death on the mountainous slopes below, ~35 miles E of Knoxville, Tennessee. He had no parachute. A search was begun for his body. The departing door also sheared off the number two (port inner) propeller. The pilot, Flt. Lt. David W. Parsons, a RAF exchange officer from Wellington, England, was circling over McGhee Tyson Air Force Base when the door gave way. He immediately initiated an emergency landing, but found that he had no hydraulic control for the nose gear, touching down on the main gear before the Hercules settled onto its nose, skidding ~5,000 feet along the runway before coming to a halt. None of the seven crew remaining aboard were hurt. The C-130 was en route from Sewart Air Force Base, at Smyrna, Tennessee to Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, South Carolina, when the accident occurred. Most of the plane's parachutes were stacked near the door and were carried over the side by the decompression. Sheriff Ray Noland stated that an open parachute was seen drifting down near Sevierville, Tennessee, and deputies searching for the crewman's body found a parachute, a seat and the door ~two miles N of state highway 73, E of Gatlinburg.


 * 1960 – The longest nonstop flight ever made by a Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft is completed when a Vickers Valiant B.Mk.1 (serial no. XD858) piloted by Sqdn. Ldr. J. H. Garstin flies around the British Isles for a total distance of 8,500 miles aided by two inflight refuelings.


 * 1953 – A Canadian Pacific Airlines de Havilland Comet crashes on takeoff from Karachi, Pakistan, killing all 11 aboard. Excessive nose-pitch causes it to stall, resulting in first fatal jetliner crash in history.


 * 1953 – First flight of the Bell HSL.


 * 1952 – A Royal Air Force Vickers Valetta VW153 crashed on take-off from RAF Butterworth, Malaya.


 * 1950 – Australian Qantas inaugurates a passenger service from Sydney to Tokyo.


 * 1949 – Commanded by Capt. James G. Gallagher, the crew of 14 aboard the Strategic Air Command B-5 A Lucky Lady II of the Forty-third Bombardment Group, USAF, completes the first nonstop round-the-world flight of 94 hours 1 min. Flying a distance of 23,452 miles the B-50 A is refueled four times by KB-29 tankers before landing back at Carswell AFB, Texas.


 * 1945 – First flight of the Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250, the first Soviet thermojet.


 * 1944 – England-based P-38 Lightning fighters of the U. S. Army Air Forces’ 55th Fighter Group become the first Allied fighters to escort bombers all the way to Berlin.


 * 1942 – KNILM Douglas DC-3 PK-AFV is shot down by three Japanese fighters and crashes 50 mi (80 km) north of Broome, Western Australia, killing 4 of 12 on board.


 * 1942 – Three Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A6 M Zero fighters shoot down the KNILM Douglas DC-3 airliner Pelikaan (tail number PK-AFV) as it approaches Broome, Australia, forcing it to make a belly landing in shallow surf at Carnot Bay, then strafe it, killing or seriously injuring four of the 12 people on board. A Japanese Kawanishi H6 K (Allied reporting name “Mavis”) flying boat bombs the wreckage the following day. A shipment of diamonds worth A£150,000 to A£300,000 aboard the plane disappears, apparently stolen.


 * 1942 – (Overnight) 235 British bombers – The largest number sent against a single target to date – Attack the Renault vehicle factory at Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris in an attempt at night precision bombing. Three-quarters of the bombs hit the factory, but 367 French civilians are killed and 10,000 rendered homeless by errant bombs. The death toll in fact is greater than in any single attack on a German city thus far in the war.


 * 1936 – Italian aircraft attack Ethiopian ground forces as they retreat across the Takkaze River, dropping mustard gas and 80 tons (72.6 tonnes/metric tons) of high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Thousands of Ethiopian troops are killed.


 * 1930 – The inaugural flight over the Prairie Air Mail Route was carried out by Western Canada Airways Ltd.


 * 1926 – Air Service to Red Lake, Ontario began. JV Elliot and AH Farringtron of Elliot Air Service flew two Curtiss JN-4 s with a passenger in each from Hudson to Red Lake, Ontario.


 * 1931 – First flight of the Fairey Gordon


 * 1919 – The first US international airmail is carried between Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia by William Boeing in a Boeing CL-4 S.


 * 1918 – Lloyd Andrews Hamilton becomes the first American to receive a commission in the British Royal Flying Corps when he is assigned as lieutenant with No. 3 squadron in France.


 * 1916 – The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor to NASA, is born.


 * 1912 – First flight of the Avro 500.


 * 1911 – With Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois navigating a course and Phillip Parmelee at the controls, the Wright Type B on loan from Robert F. Collier sets an official U. S. cross-country record from Laredo to Eagle Pass, Texas. It flies the 106 miles in 2 hours 10 min.