Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/October 12

October 12


 * 2012 – (12-15) The retired Space Shuttle Endeavour is towed 12 miles (19 km) through the streets of Los Angeles, California, from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center for museum display. Numerous logistical problems along the route cause it to arrive 17 hours late.


 * 2011 – Introduction: Boeing 747-8 (747-8F) with Cargolux


 * 2010 – A Eurocopter AS350 helicopter crashed in Antarctica, killing four people.


 * 2010 – Transafrik International Flight 662, operated by Lockheed L-100 Hercules 5X-TUC crashed into a mountain 19 miles (31 km) east of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, killing all eight crew.


 * 2009 – An Irish Air Corps Pilatus PC-9M flying in poor weather conditions crashes at Crumlin East near Cornamona in County Galway, Republic of Ireland killing the flying instructor and cadet pilot.


 * 1997 – Singer-songwriter John Denver was killed when the Long-EZ aircraft he was piloting crashed just off the coast of California at Pacific Grove, shortly after taking off from the Monterey Peninsula Airport.


 * 1988 – A Bar Harbor Airlines ATR 42 misses Air Force One by less than 1,000 feet.


 * 1980 – Mesa Airlines commenced operations.


 * 1976 – First flight of the Sikorsky S-72.


 * 1976 – Indian Airlines Flight 171, a Sud Caravelle, crashes while attempting an emergency landing at Bombay Airport. All 95 passengers and crew were killed in the accident.


 * 1971 – A RAF F-4M Phantom FGR.2, XV479, 'J', of No. 54 Squadron, on a training mission crashes into a farm house near Holstebro, Denmark, due to engine failure on take-off, killing a woman and her child. Police and rescuers who rushed to the scene could do nothing to save them from the burning house. The crew of two parachutes to safety after problems with engine reheat.


 * 1967 – Cyprus Airways Flight 284, a De Havilland Comet, is destroyed by a bomb over the Mediterranean. All 66 passengers and crew perish in the crash.


 * 1966 – Lockheed C-130E-LM Hercules, 63-7886, c/n 3957, of the 516th Troop Carrier Wing, Dyess AFB, Texas, flies into ground at night approximately 30 kilometers north-northwest of Aspermont, Texas. It impacts in a brushy pasture on the 6666 Ranch, 75 miles NW of Abilene near U.S. 83. Only one of the crew of six survives, Carroll Brezee, a loadmaster, who is pulled from the wreckage by a passing truck driver. He was in critical condition. The fuselage and tail section lay near the center of a burned area about 50 X 200 yards, with parts scattered along a half mile stretch. Sheriff E.W. Hollar, of Guthrie, nine miles N of the crash site, said that persons first reaching the scene found two bodies. A ground party from Dyess AFB found the other three in a search through heavy mesquite brush. Authorities said that these were the first fatalities in the 516th Troop Carrier Wing since it was formed at Dyess in December 1958.


 * 1966 – Two North American F-100 Super Sabres of the USAF Thunderbirds demonstration team collide during practice for a show at Sheppard AFB, Texas, at Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, Nevada, killing two of the three pilots. The jets were performing opposing half Cuban Eights when witnesses said that the two jets scraped each other at the top of a loop. The pilot of the F-100F, Capt. Robert H. Morgan, 32, of Pendleton, South Carolina, ejected but his chute did not have time to deploy and he died when he struck the ground still strapped to his seat, while team member, Maj. Frank E. Liethen, Jr., 36, Appleton, Wisconsin, riding in the second seat, died when the Super Sabre struck the desert floor. The fighter impact left a crater almost twelve feet deep. "Liethen, executive officer of the Thunderbirds, was riding with Morgan on an orientation flight. He had been with the group since last December, but ordinarily did not take part in formation flying. However, he had been scheduled to take over soon as commander and would have flown at the head of the group's diamond formation." Capt. Robert D. Beckel, 29, of Walla Walla, Washington, was able to land his F-100D at Nellis AFB, Nevada. "The Air Force said it was a 'tribute to his flying skill' that Beckel was able to land his plane, damaged in a wing. The red, white and blue jets cost a reported $650,000." Both Liethan and Morgan leave a widow and four children. "A Thunderbird spokesman said a show Saturday in Wichita Falls, Tex., would go on despite the crash - but maybe with five planes instead of six because there was no one trained to replace Morgan."


 * 1964 – Launched: Voskhod 1. This was the Soviet Union's first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits.


 * 1961 – The U.S. Navy’s first McDonnell-built F4H operational squadron, VF-74, is qualified for carrier duty.


 * 1960 – The first Hercules was delivered to the RCAF, they arrived in Trenton from Marietta, Georgia.
 * 1954 – A U.S. Navy Lockheed P2V Neptune undergoing test cycles by the Air Force Operational Test Center at Eglin AFB suffers a structural failure on landing at Auxiliary Field Number 8 which causes the starboard engine to break loose and burn in a Tuesday morning accident. The crew of two escape injury.


 * 1954 – USAF North American F-100A-1-NA Super Sabre, 52-5764, c/n 192-9, crashes at Edwards Air Force Base, California, at 1100 hrs., killing North American test-pilot Lt. George Welch, a veteran of the Japanese Navy attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. During terminal velocity dive test from 45,000 feet (14,000 m), aircraft yaws to starboard, then begins roll. Airframe breaks up under 8 G strain, pilot falls clear, chute opens, but he sustains fatal injuries, dying shortly after reaching the ground.


 * 1944 – The first B-29 Superfortress lands on Saipan, beginning the Twentieth Air Force’s build-up of a strategic bombing capability in the Mariana Islands. For the first time, all of Japan proper is within range of United States Army Air Forces strategic bombers.


 * 1944 – (12–14) Task Force 38 conducts three days of heavy air strikes against Formosa, targeting Japanese airfields and shipping, flying 1,374 sorties on the first day, 974 on the second, and 246 on the third. U. S. aircraft destroy over 500 Japanese aircraft, sink 24 cargo ships and small craft, and destroy many Japanese military facilities. On the third day, strikes also are flown against northern Luzon. Counterattacking Japanese torpedo bombers cripple the heavy cruiser USS Canberra (CA-70) and light cruiser USS Houston (CL-81).


 * 1943 – The U. S. Army Air Forces’ Fifth Air Force conducts the largest Allied airstrike thus far in World War II in the Pacific, sending 349 aircraft to attack the Japanese airfields, shipping, and supply depots at Rabaul, New Britain, losing five aircraft. Allied airstrikes on Rabaul will continue for much of the rest of the war.


 * 1942 – Famed RCAF ace, Buzz Beurling, was shot down and wounded over Malta.


 * 1940 – Ilyushin TsKB-57, prototype of the Ilyushin Il-2.


 * 1936 – Nationalist aircraft sink the Republican submarine B-5 off the coast of Spain near Málaga.


 * 1924 – 12-15 – Transportation of the Zeppelin-Airship "LZ 126" (USS Los Angeles (ZR-3)) to USA under guidance of H. Eckener.


 * 1918 – The Imperial German Navy’s Naval Airship Division flies its last combat mission.


 * 1916 – Royal Naval Air Service ace Raymond Collishaw claims his first victory.


 * 1907 – Augustus Gaudron crosses the North Sea in a hot air balloon named Mammouth. He flies 1,160 km (721 miles) from The Crystal Palace, London to Lake Vänern, Sweden.