Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/November 17

November 17


 * 2012 – Israel expands its air campaign in the Gaza Strip to target Hamas government buildings, destroying the offices of Ismail Haniyeh, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes increase to nearly 200 early in the day.


 * 2012 – Syrian rebels capture a Syrian government air base near rebel-held Abu Kamal, Syrian, meaning that the only air base the Syrian government holds in the Deiz ez-zor reigion is the main one near the city of Deiz ez-zor itself.


 * 2012 – United Nations attack helicopters strike rebel positions south of Kibumba in North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.


 * 2003 – Concorde G-BOAE Departed London Heathrow for the last time. Flew direct and retired at Grantley Adams International Airport, Barbados


 * 1997 – ValuJet Airlines terminated operations after merging to AirTran Airways.


 * 1995 – Rollout of the first HAL Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) technology demonstrator, TD-1


 * 1967 – American aircraft strike Bac Mai airfield near Hanoi for the first time.


 * 1962 – President John F. Kennedy dedicates the Dulles International Airport in Herndon, Virginia.


 * 1956 – First flight of the Dassault Mirage III


 * 1955 – One of the pilots of two USMC Grumman F9F Panther fighters that collided over the Mojave Desert near Lancaster, California, was killed this date. The dead pilot was identified as Lt. Donald R. Roland, formerly of Itasca, Illinois. The pilot of the other plane, Lt. Robert F. Heinecken, of Riverside, California, made an emergency landing and was uninjured. The planes were from MCAS El Toro, California.


 * 1955 – Douglas MC-54M Skymaster, 44-9068, c/n 27294/DO240, attached to the 1700th Air Transport Group, of the Military Air Transport Service, at Kelly AFB, Texas, crashes into Mount Charleston, ~20 miles WNW of Las Vegas, Nevada, while on a routine flight with technical personnel from the Lockheed "Skunk Works" at Burbank, California where it had picked up passengers after departing Norton Air Force Base, California. It was en route to Groom Lake, Nevada, the secret Area 51, when it was blown off course by a severe storm, killing all 14 on board, nine civilians and five military. Because of the secrecy involved with the Lockheed U-2 project, the C-54 crew was never in contact with Air Traffic Control, and, off course and lost in clouds, an error in plotting the position of the Skymaster in relation to the Spring Mountains range resulted in the crash only 50 feet below the crest of an 11,300-foot ridge leading to the peak of Mount Charleston. Lockheed subsequently assumes responsibility for the flights to "Watertown", using a company-owned C-47.


 * 1954 – A B-47 is forced by bad weather to remain aloft for 47 hours 35 min, requiring to do air-to-air refueling nine times before successfully landing.


 * 1954 – Lt. Col. John Brooke England (1923–1954) is killed in a crash near Toul-Rosieres Air Base, France when he banks away from a barracks area while landing his North American F-86 Sabre in a dense fog. His engine flamed out. He was on a rotational tour from Alexandria AFB, Louisiana, with the 389th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, which he commanded. He was a leading and much-decorated North American P-51 Mustang ace during World War II. Col. England flew 108 missions and scored 19 aerial victories-including 4 on one mission. England also served as a combat pilot in the Korean War. Alexandria Air Force Base is renamed England Air Force Base in his honor on 23 June 1955.


 * 1954 – Fairey FD.2, WG774, a single-engined transonic research aircraft, the last British design to hold the World Air Speed Record, suffers engine failure on 14th flight when internal pressure build-up collapses the fuselage collector tank at 30,000 feet (9,100 m), 30 miles (48 km) from Boscombe Down. Fairey pilot Peter Twiss, stretches glide, dead-sticks into airfield, drops undercarriage at last moment but only nose gear deploys, jet bellies in, sustaining damage that sidelines it for eight months. Twiss, only shaken up, receives the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air. FD.2 test program does not resume until August 1955.


 * 1953 – USAF Fairchild C-119F-KM Flying Boxcar, 51-8163, crashed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, during a joint airborne operation. One of 12 C-119s on a troop drop, it lost an engine, dropped out of formation, hit and killed ten troopers in their chutes that had been dropped from other aircraft, that in addition to four crew members and one medical officer that went down with the plane.


 * 1952 – On the first launch attempt of the Martin B-61A Matador, GM-11042, the JATO booster malfunctions and penetrates the rocket which then crashes 400 feet from the launch point.


 * 1947 – First flight of the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar.


 * 1945 – A USAAF Republic P-47N Thunderbolt, 44-88938, crashes between two houses on Windsor Parkway in Hempstead, New York shortly after take-off from Mitchel Field, setting both structures on fire. Morning accident kills pilot, 1st Lt. Daniel D. A. Duncan, 24, of New Iberia, Louisiana.


 * 1944 – The U. S. submarine USS Spadefish (SS-411) torpedoes and sinks the Japanese aircraft carrier Shinyo with the loss of 1,130 lives. There are 70 survivors.


 * 1943 – Air Solomons (AirSols) fighters intercept 35 Japanese planes heading for a strike on the U. S. landings on Bougainville, shooting down 16 for the loss of two F4U Corsairs. An Japanese torpedo bomber sinks a U. S. destroyer-transport off Bougainville with heavy loss of life.


 * 1943 – First flight of the Fisher P-75 Eagle


 * 1941 – Ernst Udet, the Luftwaffe's Director-General of Equipment and the second-highest German ace of World War I (62 victories), commits suicide.


 * 1940 – Operation White, a second attempt by the British aircraft carrier HMS Argus to fly off aircraft – 14 RAF Hawker Hurricanes and two Fleet Air Arm Blackburn Skuas – to Malta fails almost completely when the aircraft are launched at too great a range and become lost in bad weather. Only four Hurricanes and one Skua reach Malta; the other Hurricanes all ditch in the Mediterranean with the loss of all but one of their pilots, and the one Skua crash lands on Sicily, where the Italians capture its crew.


 * 1936 – RCAF accepted its first Blackburn Shark aircraft.


 * 1927 – Sir Alan Cobham sets out from England in a Short Singapore to make an aerial survey of Africa.


 * 1926 – Mario de Bernardi breaks his four-day old world speed record, reaching 416.618 km/h (258.875 mph) in the same Macchi M.39 at Hampton Roads, Virginia, USA.


 * 1915 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin LZ52, L 18, destroyed in shed fire at Tondern during refilling.


 * 1910 – Ralph Johnstone, a pilot for the Wright Exhibition Team, becomes the first American pilot to die in a plane crash when his machine breaks apart in mid air in full view of about 5,000 spectators at Denver, Colorado.


 * 1906 – The Daily Mail of London offers a £10,000 prize for the first flight from London to Manchester.