Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September 24

September 24


 * 2010 – Wind Jet Flight 243, operated by Airbus A319-132 EI-EDM, landed short of the runway at Punta Raisi Airport, Palermo, Italy after encountering a thunderstorm and windshear on approach. The aircraft was substantially damaged when it impacted the localiser. Both main undercarriage sets collapsed and the aircraft was evacuated by the emergency slides. Around 20 passengers were injured in the evacuation.


 * 2009 – SA Airlink flight SA 8911, a BAe Jetstream 41, registration ZS-NRM, crashes shortly after take-off from Durban International Airport due to an engine failure. The aircraft is destroyed but the three crew members survive with serious injuries.


 * 2009 – A French Navy Aviation navale test flight involving two Dassault Rafale aircraft flying back to the Aircraft Carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91) collide in mid-air. The incident occurred in the Mediterranean of the coast of Perpignan, Pyrénées-Orientales, France and one pilot was rescued after ejecting from the aircraft the second pilot listed as missing.


 * 2008 – A Serbian Air Force SOKO G-4 Super Galeb basic trainer/light attack jet aircraft with serial number 23736 flown by Lt. Colonel Ištvan Kanas crashed at Batajnica Air Base. Ištvan Kanas (aged 43), pilot of Flight Test Section (Sektor za letna ispitivanja - SLI) unfortunately did not survive the crash. Kanas was a top Serbian test pilot and member of the private aerobatics team and former member of Leteće Zvezde aerobatics team, officials say he was practicing for an upcoming Belgrade 2008 airshow. He was a father of two. This is the second G-4 Super Galeb ever to crash with tragic consequences after 21 years.


 * 2007 – A Let L-410 (reg 9Q-CVL) owned by Free Airlines crashes on landing at Malemba-Nkulu, DRC from Lubumbashi


 * 2001 – 13 days after 9/11, US Airways decided to terminate all flights from MetroJet.


 * 1987 – A Tornado F3, ZE155, from Boscombe Down, made the first non-stop un-refuelled crossing of the Atlantic by a British jet fighter. The sortie covered 2,200nms in 4 hr 45 min, and took place as the aircraft returned from Arizona after a series of tropical trials.


 * 1975 – Garuda Indonesia Flight 150, a Fokker F-28 Fellowship, crashes while on approach to Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II Airport in foggy weather; 25 of 61 on board die; one person on the ground also dies.


 * 1973 – RAF Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1A, XV739, 'V', of 1 Squadron, crashes at Episkopi Cantonment, Cyprus, during the climbing transition from hover during a display rehearsal. Pilot ejects.


 * 1972 – Japan Airlines Flight 472, a Douglas DC-8 with 122 on board, overruns the runway after landing at the wrong airport; no fatalities.


 * 1968 – A Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker crash during an emergency landing at Wake Island produces the first tanker casualty in the Southeast Asia war. The crash claims 11 Arc Light support personnel redeploying from U-Tapao Air Base, Thailand.


 * 1966 – Marina Solovyeva sets a new women's airspeed record of 2044 km/h in the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-76


 * 1959 – The 1959 TAI Douglas DC-7 accident occurred when the DC-7 crashed into a pine forest on departure from Bordeax Airport, France, 54 of the 65 people on board are killed.


 * 1959 – A Lockheed U-2C, 56-6693, Article 360, of the SAC's 4028th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (SRS), Detachment C, out of Atsugi Air Force Base, Japan, and clandestinely operated by the CIA, runs out of fuel and pilot Tom Crull makes an emergency landing at the civilian airfield at Fujisawa, damaging belly. The black-painted aircraft with no identity markings attracts curious locals, and officials and Military Police are quickly dispatched to cordon-off the area. This they do at gunpoint, which attracts even more attention and pictures of the highly secret U-2C soon appear in the Japanese press. Factory repaired and assigned to Det. B, this is the airframe that pilot Francis Gary Powers will be shot down in on 1 May 1960. The 20th U-2 built, it was delivered to the CIA on 5 November 1956. Used for test and development work from 1957 to May 1959. Converted to U-2C by 18 August 1959.


 * 1958 – Guided air-to-air missiles are used in combat for the first time when Republic of China Air Force F-86 F Sabres use AAM-N-7 Sidewinder IA – Later known as AIM-9 B Sidewinder IA – missiles to down several People’s Republic of China MiG-15 fighters.


 * 1958 – Twelfth of 13 North American X-10s, GM-52-5, c/n 12, on X-10 Drone BOMARC target mission 1, out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The remaining X-10s are expended as targets for Bomarc and Nike antiaircraft missiles. The X-10 flies out over the ocean, then accelerates toward the Cape at supersonic speed. A Bomarc A missile comes within lethal miss distance. The X-10 then autolands on the Skid Strip, but both the drag chute and landing barrier fail. The vehicle runs off the runway and explodes.


 * 1958 – During the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, a dogfight breaks out between 32 Republic of China Air Force F-86F Sabres and over 100 People's Republic of China MiG aircraft. During the engagement, guided air-to-air missiles are employed in combat for the first time when the Sabres use AAM-N-7 Sidewinder IA – later known as AIM-9B Sidewinder IA – missiles to down several MiG-15 (NATO reporting name "Fagot") fighters and at least ten MiG-17s (NATO reporting name "Fresco").


 * 1957 – US Air Force Major James Melancon, 36, of Dallas, Texas, is killed when the Douglas B-26 Invader he was piloting crashes in a residential area near Dayton, Ohio at 1659 hrs. Coming down at 1843 Tuttle Avenue, the flight, out of Wright Field, strikes a home, killing the pilot, co-pilot Capt. Wilho R. Heikkinen, 31, and two on the ground, and injuring others. Mildred VanZant, 44, an assistant director of nursing at St. Elizabeth Hospital, was killed when the plane impacted her house. Her brother Walter Geisler, 53, was mowing the lawn behind the house when he was killed. Four houses were struck by wreckage and two were set alight. An investigation determined that a loose engine cowling moved forward into the propeller. The pilot's son, Mark E. Melancon, will die in the Thunderbirds demonstration team Diamond Crash in Nevada in 1982.


 * 1956 – The Luftwaffe is re-formed in West Germany


 * 1949 – First flight of the North American T-28 Trojan


 * 1946 – The Hong Kong airline Cathay Pacific is founded.


 * 1944 – More than 30 U. S. Navy carrier aircraft from Task Force 38 sink the Japanese seaplane tender Akitsushima in Coron Bay off Coron Island in the Philippine Islands with the loss of 86 lives.


 * 1940 – (24-26) A British naval force supports a disastrous Free French attempt at an amphibious invasion of Dakar. Vichy French forces resist successfully, and HMS Ark Royal loses nine Swordfish aircraft before operations are called off.


 * 1940 – (24-25) French Air Force bombers raid Gibraltar in retaliation for the British July attacks on French warships at Mers-el-Kébir and Dakar.


 * 1938 – (24-25) Three Soviet women – Valentina Grizodubova, Polina Osipenko, and Marina Raskova – Fly the Tupolev ANT-37 Rodina (“Motherland”) nonstop across the Soviet Union, achieving a women’s world nonstop distance record of 5913 km in 26 hours 29 min.


 * 1930 – First flight of the Short Rangoon


 * 1930 – John W. Young (Date of Birth), American astronaut who walked on the Moon on April 21, 1972 during the Apollo 16 mission, was born. Young enjoyed one of the longest and busiest careers of any astronaut in the American space program. He was the first person to fly into space six times, twice journeyed to the Moon, and as of 2007, is the only person to have piloted four different classes of spacecraft.


 * 1929 – Lt Jimmy Doolittle (right) makes a completely blind take-off, flight, and landing.


 * 1925 – During the 1925 Schneider Trophy race, British entry Supermarine S.4 loses control, is seen to side-slip, then pancakes into the Chesapeake Bay, landing on the front of its floats and overturning. Pilot Henri Biard swims free of airframe and is rescued. British officials intimate that the pilot banked too steeply and stalled, but designer R.J. Mitchell suspected that the cantilever wing design may have been partially at fault. Another British entry, Gloster IIIA, suffers broken strut between float and fuselage during taxi after landing from first run which allows nose to drop, propeller cuts into duralumin float, making airframe unable to compete. Lt. Jimmy Doolittle in U.S. Army Curtiss R3C-2, BuNo A6979, '3', wins competition with top speed of 233 mph.


 * 1918 – Lt David Ingalls claims his fifth victory, to become the only US Navy ace of World War I.


 * 1911 – The Royal Navy’s first rigid airship, HMA No. 1, also known as Mayfly, breaks in half and is wrecked during a pre-commissioning ground test.


 * 1852 – English engineer Henri Giffard flies 27 km (17 miles) in a steam-powered dirigible, reaching a speed of about 10 km/h.