Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September 15

September 15


 * 2010 – DHC-8-103B LN-WIF of Widerøes Flyveselskap was substantially damaged in a hard landing at Sandnessjøen Airport, Stokka when the undercarriage collapsed. The aircraft was operating a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Bodø Airport.


 * 2005 – Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker of the 6th Air Force, 177th Fighter Regiment, during a flight between St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, for unknown reasons veers off its course while travelling over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, enters Lithuanian airspace and crashes in Jurbarkas region, Lithuania. No one is harmed during the incident, and pilot Maj. Velery Troyanov ejects safely.


 * 1997 – (15-21) The World Air Games are held in Turkey. They include the 10th FAI World Rally Flying Championship.


 * 1991 – First flight of the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III


 * 1988 – C-GTRT (Tracker) first flew with Pratt and Whitney Canada.


 * 1988 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 604, a Boeing 737, crashes on takeoff after suffering multiple bird strikes; 35 of 98 passengers die, all 6 crew survive.


 * 1987 – A Eurocopter Panther sets new time-to-altitude records for helicopters in its class


 * 1982 – The Douglas Aircraft division of McDonnell Douglas delivers its 2,000th jet airliner, a DC-10 built for United Airlines.


 * 1982 – A Greek Air Force F-84F exploded over Larissa, three people on the ground killed.


 * 1978 – Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer, dies. (b.1898).


 * 1974 – Air Vietnam Flight 706, a Boeing 727, is hijacked and crashes in Phan Rang, Vietnam; all 75 on board die.


 * 1974 – On third day of Naval Preliminary Evaluation (NPE-1) testing, first prototype Sikorsky YCH-53E Sea Stallion, BuNo 159121, is destroyed at the Sikorsky plant at Stratford, Connecticut when it rolls onto its side and burns after one of the main rotor blades detaches during a ground run. It had first flown on 1 March 1974. Second prototype is grounded while accident is investigated, flight testing resuming on 24 January 1975.


 * 1972 – An SAS domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm was hijacked and flown to Malmö-Bulltofta Airport.


 * 1969 – First flight of the Cessna FanJet 500, the prototype which led to the Cessna Citation.


 * 1968 – The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.


 * 1960 – Tasman Empire Airways retires its last flying boat from service.


 * 1956 – Introduction: Tupolev Tu-104 with Aeroflot


 * 1950 – Task Force 7, centred on five US Navy carriers and one of the Royal Navy, supports the USMC assault on Green Beach, paving the way for the Inchon Landing.


 * 1949 – First Convair B-36 Peacemaker loss occurs when B-36B 44-92079, of the 9th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing, crashes into Lake Worth during a night "maximum effort" mission takeoff from Carswell AFB, Texas, killing five of 13 crew. Cause attributed to two propellers going into reverse pitch. Wreckage removed from lake and scrapped.


 * 1949 – No. 421 Squadron was reformed at Chathan, New Brunswick, equipped with DH 100 Vampire fighters.


 * 1948 – Flying an F-86 A Sabre fighter, U. S. Air Force Major Richard L. Johnson sets a world speed record of 670.981 mph (1,079.6 km/hr).


 * 1945 – A flypast of 300 aircraft takes place over London to celebrate Battle of Britain Day on the fifth anniversary of the decisive day of combat in the Battle of Britain. Although two-thirds of the fighter squadrons defending Britain in the battle operated Hawker Hurricanes, not a single Hurricane takes part in the flypast.


 * 1945 – Hurricane destroys three wooden blimp hangars at NAS Richmond, Florida, southwest of Miami, with 140 mph winds. Roofs collapse, ruptured fuel tanks are ignited by shorted electrical lines, fire consumes twenty-five blimps (eleven deflated), 31 non-Navy U.S. government aircraft, 125 privately owned aircraft, and 212 Navy aircraft. Thirty-eight Navy personnel injured, civilian fire chief killed. Air operations are reduced to a minimum following this storm, and NAS Richmond is closed two months later.


 * 1943 – First Avro 683 Lancaster X arrived in England after a transatlantic delivery flight.


 * 1943 – A German guided bomb strikes another American Liberty ship off Salerno, and she becomes a total loss.


 * 1943 – 15-16 – First use of the "Tall Boy" 12,000 lb (5,455 kg) bomb by RAF Lancasters.


 * 1942 – The Japanese submarine I-19 torpedoes and sinks the U. S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7) southeast of the Solomon Islands.


 * 1942 – German Luftwaffe ace Hans-Joachim Marseille shoots down seven British Curtiss Kittyhawk fighters on a single mission over North Africa. Among them is his 150th aerial victory.


 * 1942 – The United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command establishes the 319th Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD), a second organization of civilian women ferry pilots and rival of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) established five days earlier. Neither the WAFS nor the WFTD acknowledges the existence of the other.


 * 1942 – Vultee XA-31B-VU Vengeance, 42-35824, piloted by H. H. Sargent Jr., out of Rentschler Field, Connecticut, overturns in a tobacco field while making forced landing near Windsor Locks, Connecticut, after engine failure.[149] Initially built as a non-flying XA-31A engine-test airframe but later upgraded for operation.


 * 1941 – Miroslaw Hermaszewski, First Polish Cosmonaut in Space, is born.


 * 1940 – Germany makes its heaviest daylight raid on London


 * 1940 – First flight of the Miles M.20 U-9


 * 1939 – Introduction: Bristol Bolingbroke


 * 1939 – The Khalkhin Gol Incident concludes in a Soviet victory over the Imperial Japanese Army. In the final August 20-September 15 Soviet offensive, the Soviet Air Force claims the destruction of another 290 Japanese aircraft, bringing the total Soviet claim since the beginning of the Incident on May 11 to 645 Japanese planes destroyed. The Soviets claim to have lost only 34 aircraft in the last two months of the conflict.


 * 1938 – The United States Army Air Corps officially activates Hickam Field in the Territory of Hawaii.


 * 1938 – Air Training Command of the RCAF was formed, with headquarters at Toronto, Ontario.


 * 1935 – A Seversky SEV-3 sets a world speed record for piston-engined amphibious airplanes, reaching 230.413 mph (370.814 km/hr). The record still stands.


 * 1924 – A Curtiss N-9 seaplane, equipped with radio control and without a human pilot aboard, was flown on a 40-minute flight at the Naval Proving Grounds, Dahlgren, Virginia. Although the aircraft sank from damage sustained while landing, this test demonstrated the practicability of radio control of aircraft.


 * 1923 – Major Edward L. Napier, a native of Union Springs, Alabama, is killed in the crash of a Fokker D.VII, AS-5382, at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, He had been a Medical Corps Officer in the Great War and had transferred to the Army Air Corps. He was receiving training as a flight surgeon at the time of his death. The official report states that he was piloting the plane himself and there was a structural failure of a wing. In 1941, the U.S. Army Air Corps will open Napier Field at Dothan, Alabama, named in his honor.


 * 1916 – French submarine Foucault is sunk by two Austrian flying boats, becoming the first submarine to be sunk by an aircraft.


 * 1911 – Édouard Nieuport, one of the pre-eminent aeroplane designers and racing pilots of the era, and co-founder with his brother Charles de Niéport of the French aircraft manufacturer Nieuport, is killed in a flying accident.


 * 1904 – Wilbur Wright in the airplane Flyer II made his first controlled half-circle while in flight.


 * 1784 – Italian diplomat, Vincenzo Lunardi, makes the first ascent in a hydrogen balloon in Britain.