Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September 17

September 17


 * 2013 – First Flight of the Boeing 787-9 N789ZB at Paine Field in Everett, Washington, United States.


 * 2009 – An Indonesian Air Force FFA AS-202 Bravo on a routine training flight crashes into a rice field in Sragen, Central Java killing the pilot.


 * 2006 – In the 2006 Nigerian Air Force Dornier 228 crash, fifteen are killed, including many senior officers.


 * 2001 – Grozny Mil Mi-8 crash in Chechnya killed 13 Russian military personnel, mostly senior military officers including two generals.


 * 1997 – First flight of the Antonov An-140


 * 1993 – The F/A-18 Hornet logs its 2 millionth flying hour – Achieved in only ten years of operations.


 * 1987 – McDonnell-Douglas KC-10A Extender, 82-0190, c/n 48212, written off in ramp fire after explosion while undergoing maintenance at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, killing crew chief.


 * 1984 – First flight of the Avtek 400 N400AV


 * 1981 – Near Sardinia, Italy, a USMC Sikorsky CH-53C Sea Stallion helicopter crashes while attempting to land aboard the USS Guadalcanal during training exercises, killing all five crewmen.


 * 1976 – The prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise, built by Rockwell International (North American), rolls out. Its 9-month approach and landing test program lasts from Jan. 31 to Oct. 26, 1977.


 * 1974 – Entered Service: F-14 Tomcat with VF-1 and VF-2 aboard USS Enterprise


 * 1965 – Pan Am Flight 292, a Boeing 707, crashes into Chances Peak, Montserrat in stormy weather; all 30 on board die.


 * 1961 – Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 706, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes on takeoff from Chicago as a result of a maintenance error causing the aileron s to become detached from the control wheels; all 37 on board die.


 * 1960 – East African Airways commences jet services between London and Nairobi


 * 1959 – Introduction: North American X-15 (powered)


 * 1956 – Sixth Lockheed U-2A, Article 346, 56-6679, delivered to the CIA on 13 January 1956, crashes during climb-out from Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany, when the aircraft of Detachment A, stalls at 35,000 feet (11,000 m), killing Agency pilot Howard Carey. Cause of accident never satisfactorily determined.


 * 1956 – Boeing B-52B Stratofortress, 53-393, of the 93d Bomb Squadron, crashes near Madera, California after an in-flight fire. Five crew killed, two bailed out safely.


 * 1947 – The United States Army Air Forces are separated from the United States Army and become an independent armed service, the United States Air Force.


 * 1944 – No. 437 Squadron took part in the airborne landings at Eindhoven, Grave and Arnhem, in the Netherlands.


 * 1944 – The U. S. Navy submarine USS Barb (SS-220) torpedoes and sinks the Japanese aircraft carrier Unyō in the South China Sea. There are over 761 survivors.


 * 1940 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious raid Benghazi, Libya.


 * 1939 – The German submarine U-29 torpedoes and sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous with the loss of 518 lives while Courageous is conducting an antisubmarine patrol in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Fleet Air Arm’s No. 811 and No. 822 Swordfish squadrons are completely destroyed in the sinking. The loss of Courageous results in the Royal Navy withdrawing aircraft carriers from antisubmarine operations.


 * 1939 – Polish LWS-3 Mewa destroyed near Stanisławów in the SE Poland due to fuel shortage.


 * 1937 – At a conference at Nyon, Switzerland, to address Italian attacks on merchant ships in the Mediterranean Sea attended by Bulgaria, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Turkey, delegates agree that a British and French naval patrol in the Mediterranean west of Malta previously authorized to sink submarines suspected of attacking merchant ships also will be authorized to attack aircraft suspected of engaging in anti-shipping strikes. The agreement is in response to Italian attacks on merchant ships by aircraft based at Majorca.


 * 1935 – First flight of the Junkers Ju 87


 * 1930 – Edgar Mitchell, American astronaut and the sixth man to walk on the Moon, was born.


 * 1929 – First flight of the Adcox Student Prince


 * 1917 – First flight of the Junkers D.I


 * 1917 – A kite balloon from the USS Huntington (ACR 5) was hit by a squall and while being hauled down struck the water so hard that the observer, Lieutenant (jg) Henry W. Hoyt, was knocked out of the basket and caught underwater in the balloon rigging. As the balloon was pulled toward the ship, Patrick McGunigal, Ships Fitter First Class, jumped overboard, cleared the tangle and put a line around Lieutenant Hoyt so that he could be hauled up on deck. For this act of heroism, McGunigal was later awarded the Medal of Honor.


 * 1916 – Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen scores his first kill, from an Albatros D.II


 * 1911 – Lieutenant Reginald Archibald Cammell of the British Air Battalion was killed conducting a trial flight of an ASL Valkyrie monoplane Type B with his own engine fitted. The accident was not considered to be due to faults in the aircraft, but to have been caused by Cammell's lack of experience with the aircraft.


 * 1908 – Army Signal Corps Wright Model A, Army Signal Corps serial number 1, piloted by Orville Wright, crashes at Ft. Myer, Virginia, killing Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge. In flight that begins just after 0700 hrs., a propeller breaks and severs control wires. Rebuilt. Retired 4 May 1911, and now in Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C., accepted on 20 October 1911. Selfridge AFB, Michigan, was later named for the first U.S. military air crash victim. Wright is also hospitalized until 31 October and spends several more weeks on crutches.