Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September 23

September 23


 * 2004 – AH-64D Apache 02-5292 from B Company, 1–227th Aviation Regiment, 4th BCT, 1st Cavalry Division crashes near Tallil AB, Iraq when pilot loses control following tail rotor problem.


 * 1999 – NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter after it descended to a low altitude in Mars’ orbit and was destroyed by atmospheric stresses.


 * 1999 – Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm. While some passengers only received minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas‘s history to date.


 * 1997 – Static test Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet airframe, ST56, being barricade tested at NAES Lakehurst, New Jersey by being powered down a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) track by a Pratt & Whitney J57-powered jet car, flips over and crashes into nearby woods when the steel cable linking the barrier with underground hydraulic engines fails.


 * 1983 – Gulf Air Flight 771, a Boeing 737, crashes near Mina Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates after a bomb planted by the Abu Nidal Organization detonates on board; all 112 people on board perish.


 * 1968 – General Dynamics F-111A, 66-0040, c/n A1-58, crashes and is destroyed this date due to control system failure, at Nellis AFB, Nevada. Crew ejected safely.


 * 1961 – The 1961 Turkish Airlines Ankara crash: a Turkish Airlines-operated Fokker F27 Friendship crashes while on approach to Esenboğa Airport; 28 of the 29 passengers and crew on board perish in the crash.


 * 1959 – The USAF officially cancels the North American Aviation XF-108 Rapier.


 * 1941 – Formation of University Training Squadrons was approved.


 * 1941 – Hans-Ulrich Rudel single-handedly sinks a Soviet battleship (the Marat) flying a Junkers Ju 87


 * 1940 – The British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal arrives off Dakar, Senegal, with the Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle embarked. She flies off two French Caudron C.270 Luciole trainer aircraft which carry Free French officers ashore to request that Vichy French forces there join de Gaulle on the Allied side, but the Vichy French refuse.


 * 1938 – First flight of the Supermarine Sea Otter. (Some sources say 29 Sep).


 * 1931 – A Pitcairn XOP-1 autogyro conducts landing and take-off trials aboard the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Langley (CV-1). It is the U. S. Navy’s first experiment with a shipborne rotary-wing aircraft.


 * 1925 – The U.S. Navy flies 23 Curtiss CS-1 floatplanes to Bay Shore Park on the Chesapeake Bay, 14 miles SE of Baltimore, Maryland, on a Friday with intention of an airshow demonstration before the 1925 Schneider Cup Race on Saturday, but that night gale force winds break three-inch mooring and anchor ropes on 17 of the biplanes and they are blown onto shore or dashed against seawalls, destroying seven and damaging ten. The next afternoon's Baltimore Evening Sun runs headline "Plane Disaster in Harbor Called Hard Blow to Navy" and quotes the ever-outspoken General William "Billy" Mitchell calling the loss of the CS-1s "staggering", and blaming it on Navy mismanagement of its aviation program.


 * 1923 – 1st Lts. Robert Stanford Olmsted and John W. Shoptaw enter U.S. Army balloon S-6 in international balloon race from Brussels, despite threatening weather which causes some competitors to drop out. S-6 collides with Belgian balloon, Ville de Bruxelles on launch, tearing that craft's netting and knocking it out of the race. Lightning strikes S-6 over Nistelrode, the Netherlands, killing Olmsted outright, and Shoptaw in the fall. Switzerland's Génève is also hit, burns, killing two on board, as is Spain's Polar, killing one crew immediately, second crewman jumps from 100 ft, breaking both legs. Three other balloons are also forced down.Middletown Air Depot, Pennsylvania, was renamed Olmsted AFB on 11 March 1948.


 * 1922 – A Martin NBS-1 bomber, Air Service 68487, Raymond E. Davis, pilot, nose dived and crashed from an estimated altitude of 500 ft on a residential street near Mitchel Field, Mineola, New York, killing the six military personnel on board. At the time, the plane was involved in a night time war game display that was lit by searchlights and watched by an estimated crowd of 25,000 spectators.


 * 1917 – During an epic 10-minute dogfight against six Royal Flying Corps SE.5s of No. 56 Squadron, the German ace Werner Voss, flying a Fokker Dr.I triplane, is shot down and killed by the British ace Arthur Rhys-Davids north of Frezenberg, Belgium. At the time of his death, Voss has 48 victories and is the second-leading German ace behind Manfred von Richthofen.


 * 1916 – 23-24 – By some counts as many as eleven Zeppelins (more likely four) attacked England in a mass air-raid. Two were shot down, LZ 76 by ground fire, and LZ 74 by Lt Frederick Sowrey


 * 1913 – Roland Garros (right) makes the first air crossing of the Mediterranean Sea. He flies the 729 km (453 miles) from Saint-Raphaël to Bizerte in 7 hours 53 min.


 * 1911 – The first US airmail flight is made. Earle Ovington flies 9.7 km (6 miles) from Nassau Boulevard, New York to Mineola, New York.


 * 1910 – The Peruvian Geo Chavez flies the Blériot-monoplane over the Alps from Brig (Switzerland) to Domodossola (Italy) reaching a height of 2200 m, but was killed in a crash landing.