Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/October 17

October 17


 * 2009 – RP-C550, a Douglas DC-3 operated by Victoria Air, crashes shortly after take-off from Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Philippines, on a flight to Puerto Princesa International Airport after an engine malfunctions. All four people on board are killed.


 * 2009 – A United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F/A-18D Hornet (164729) from the Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron No. 224 VMFA(AW)-224 based at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, Beaufort, South Carolina experiences a heavy landing at Jacksonville International Airport, Duval County, Florida. The aircraft with two other Marine F/A-18 Hornet aircraft were landing at Jacksonville Airport in preparation for a flyover at the nearby NFL Jacksonville Jaguars game when the aircraft experiences an airborne technical fault and the port landing-gear collapses causing the aircraft to land only on the nose-wheel, starboard undercarriage and the exposed port-side external fuel-tank. The F/A-18 Hornet skidded down the runway with most damage occurring to the grounded external fuel-tank and the 2 Marine crew were uninjured.


 * 2008 – The Russian Air Force grounds all its Mikoyan MiG-29s following a crash in Siberia on this date. The fighter came down 60 kilometers (37 mi) from the Domna airfield during a regular training flight. The pilot ejected safely.


 * 1996 – Retired: Vickers Vanguard


 * 1988 – Uganda Airlines Flight 775 crashed while attempting to land at Roma-Fiumicino Airport. 33 of the 52 passengers and crew on board were killed.


 * 1982 – The last flight of the CF-104 in Canada. 104646 of AETE was ferried Cold Lake to Trenton by Maj Croll and Capt Youngson.


 * 1977- German Autumn: Four days after it was hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 lands in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos later rescues all remaining hostages on board.


 * 1977- The US ban on Concorde was lifted when the Supreme Court of the United States declined to overturn a lower court's ruling rejecting the Port Authority's efforts to continue the ban.


 * 1966 – Lockheed U-2D, 56-6951, Article 391, first airframe of the USAF supplementary production, and assigned to the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, Laughlin AFB, Texas, crashed at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, in a non-fatal accident. The pilot was Maj. Leslie White, who stalled on approach on his first flight. "The pilot survived, but the airplane was washed out," noted Kelly Johnson.


 * 1965 – Over North Vietnam, American aircraft carry out their first successful Iron Hand surface-to-air-missile (SAM) site detection and suppression mission.


 * 1956 – Mae Jemison, American astronaut, was born. Dr. Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 1992.


 * 1953 – Pilot of a Republic F-84F-1-RE Thunderstreak, 51-1354, is killed in an accident at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.


 * 1951 – Entered Service: Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck with the Royal Canadian Air Force in Malton, Ontario.


 * 1944 – In the first day of Operation Millet, the British aircraft carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Victorious launch heavy strikes against Car Nicobar, striking airfields on the island and the harbor and shipping at Nancowry. Japanese antiaircraft fire shoots down three British planes.


 * 1944 – (17–19) Carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 strike targets on Luzon.


 * 1940 – First flight of the Airspeed Fleet Shadower


 * 1931 – The first hook-on test of the U. S. Navy’s parasite fighter program takes places, as the Curtiss XF9 C-1 prototype successfully docks with the dirigible USS Los Angeles (ZR-3).


 * 1922 – Lt. Virgil C. Griffin makes the first take-off from a US aircraft carrier in a Vought VE-7 from USS Langley.


 * 1922 – Lt U.S. Army's largest blimp, C-2, catches fire shortly after being removed from its hangar at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas for a flight. Seven of eight crew aboard are injured, mostly in jumping from the craft. This accident was made the occasion for official announcement by the Army and the Navy that the use of hydrogen would be abandoned "as speedily as possible." On 14 September 1922, the C-2 had made the first transcontinental airship flight, from Langley Field, Virginia, to Foss Field, California, under the command of Maj H. A. Strauss.


 * 1913 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin L 2, LZ18, destroyed by an exploding engine during a test flight - the entire crew of 28 was killed.


 * 1900 – On her second flight, the Zeppelin LZ-1 remains aloft for 80 min.