Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September 16

September 16


 * 2013 – First Flight of the Bombardier CSeries C-FBCS at Montréal-Mirabel International Airport, Montreal, Quebec.


 * 2011 – 2011 Reno Air Races crash: The North American P-51D Mustang The Galloping Ghost, flown by James K. "Jimmy" Leeward, crashes into box seats in front of the grandstand at the Reno Air Races at Reno Stead Airport north of Reno, Nevada. Leeward and 10 others are killed and 69 people are injured. It is the third-deadliest airshow accident in U.S. history and the deadliest aviation accident of any kind in the United States in two years.


 * 2011 – Libyan rebel forces take control of the airport at Sirte.


 * 2008 – Deceased: John Fancy, 95, British World War II RAF airman.


 * 2007 – One-Two-GO Airlines Flight 269 crashes on landing in Phuket International Airport after a failed go-around during extreme windshear conditions, breaking into two pieces on an embankment next to the runway. The crash of the MD-82 (registered HS-OMG) killed 90 of the 130 on board. Investigators blame the crash on pilot error, as the pilot decided to land even though the control tower warned them about the difficult time the previous aircraft had.


 * 1996 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-79 at 4:54:49.048 am EDT. Mission highlights: Shuttle-Mir docking.


 * 1980 – First flight of the AIDC AT-3.


 * 1964 – First flight of the Mikoyan Ye-155-P1


 * 1959 – A Convair YB-58A-10-CF Hustler, 58-1017, c/n 24, of the 43rd Bomb Wing, is totally destroyed by fire following an aborted take-off from Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas. The loss was directly attributed to tire failure, followed by disintegration of the wheel. Sturdier tires and new wheels will be retrofitted to the type to address this problem.


 * 1958 – First flight of the North American Sabreliner (NA265-40)


 * 1958 – A Boeing B-52D-20-BW Stratofortress, 55-065, c/n 464017, crashes in the August Kahl farmyard at Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, near St. Paul, after losing its tail section in flight. Only the co-pilot, Capt. Jack D. Craft, 29, of Sturgis, Massachusetts, survived of the eight crew. Air Force officials said that he was in shock and unable to answer questions. The jet tore a hole 300 feet long by 15 feet deep in the farmyard. The plane exploded as it hit, setting fire to the farm buildings. Eight members of the Kahl family were injured, and three remain hospitalized. They lost all their possessions in the explosion and fire.


 * 1955 – Gloster Meteor aircraft of the Argentine Air Force attack the Argentine Navy destroyers Cervantes and La Rioja in the River Plate during the Revolución Libertadora against Juan Perón, inflicting numerous casualties.


 * 1953 – American Airlines Flight 723, a Convair 240, crashes while on approach to Albany Airport, all 28 passengers and crew die.


 * 1951 – A damaged McDonnell F2H-2 Banshee jet fighter, BuNo 124968, of VF-172, returning to the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Essex, on its first Korean War cruise, misses the recovery net and crashes into several planes parked on the ship's deck, killing seven people and destroying four aircraft. This crash led the USN to equip all future carriers with angled flight decks for safer airplane recovery.


 * 1947 – A pilot assigned to Eglin Field, Florida, is KWF during an attempted emergency landing in a Lockheed P-80 at that base on Tuesday afternoon. Capt. Lawson L. Lipscomb of Houston, Texas, radioed that he was having difficulty with the jet and was returning to the Eglin main base where emergency preparations had been made on the runways, but the fighter came down just west of the airfield.


 * 1946 – The Italian airline Alitalia is formed.


 * 1943 – The British battleship HMS Warspite is badly damaged by two hits and two near misses by German guided bombs off Salerno. She is out of service until mid-1944.


 * 1942 – (Overnight) 369 British bombers attack Germany, losing 39 of their number, a very high 10.6 percent loss rate. One German night fighter pilot, Hauptmann Reinhold Knacke, shoots down five bombers during the night.


 * 1939 – Soviet ace (18 victories) of the Spanish Civil War, Sergey Gritsevets, assigned to act as an adviser in a fighter brigade at Orsha for the invasion of Poland on 17 September, is killed this date in a landing accident. At 1907 hrs., three Polikarpov I-16s took off for Bolbasovo. When they landed at 1950 hrs., Gritsevets was killed when Major Petr I. Khara’s (also a veteran from Spain) aircraft stalled whilst landing and crashing into Gritsevets, who was taxiing on the airfield at Bolbasovo. Khara survived the crash.


 * 1936 – Tupolev TB-3-4AM-34FRN with A. B. Yumashev at the controls sets a payload-to-altitude record of 10,000 kg (22,046 lb) to 6,605 m (21,670 feet).


 * 1932 – Cyril Uwins sets a new heavier-than-air altitude record of 43,976 ft (13,404 m) in a Vickers Vespa.


 * 1916 – Two Imperial German Navy Zeppelins destroyed when L 6, LZ31, took fire during refilling of gas in its hangar at Fuhlsbüttel and burnt down together with L 9, LZ36.


 * 1914 – The Canadian Aviation Corps was authorized by the (Colonel Sam Hughes), the Minister of Militia and Defense to be formed. This was the beginning of Canada’s military air force. It was composed of two officers and one mechanic.


 * 1910 – Bessica Raiche makes the first solo airplane flight by a woman in the United States to be accredited at the time by the Aeronautical Society of America.