Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September 4

September 4


 * 2010 – Alrosa Mirny Air Enterprise Flight 514, operated by Tupolev Tu-154 M RA-85684 suffered a complete electrical failure in flight. A successful emergency landing was made at Izhma Airport, Russia but the aircraft overran the runway. All 81 passengers and crew escaped uninjured. The aircraft involved was repaired in 2011.
 * 2010 – New Zealand Fletcher FU24 crash: This crash occurred on take-off from the Fox Glacier, killing all nine people on board. This was the worst aircraft accident in New Zealand for 21 years, and at the time the 7th worst in New Zealand.
 * 2009 – Air India Flight 829, a Boeing 747-437, registration VT-ESM, suffers a fire in No.1 engine while taxiing for take-off at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, India. All 229 people are successfully evacuated from the aircraft via the emergency chutes. The aircraft is substantially damaged.
 * 2004 – OH-58D Kiowa (3–17 CAV) shot down over Tal Afar, Iraq; both pilots safe. Incident highlighted in TV Documentary Kiowa Down.
 * 2001 – First flight of the Sukhoi Su-80
 * 2000 – 2000 Australia Beechcraft King Air crash: A Beechcraft King Air on a flight from Perth, Western Australia to the Gwalia Gold Mine fails to land; instead flying on autopilot across Australia to Burketown, Queensland, where it eventually crashes after running out of fuel. The pilot and the seven passengers are killed.
 * 1999 – September 12 – The 11th FAI World Rally Flying Championship in Ravenna, Italy. Individual winners: first Krzysztof Wieczorek & Wacław Wieczorek (Poland), 2nd Janusz Darocha & Zbigniew Chrząszcz (Poland), 3rd Nigel Hopkins & Dale de Klerk (South Africa); team winners: first Poland, 2nd Czech Republic, 3rd France.
 * 1997 – First flight of The Zeppelin NT, German semi-rigid airship.
 * 1992 – A B-2 Spirit bomber drops a bomb for the first time.
 * 1971 – Alaska Airlines Flight 1866, a Boeing 727, crashes into a mountain in the Tongass National Forest near Juneau, Alaska, killing all 111 on board.
 * 1964 – First flight of the HAL HJT-16 Kiran
 * 1963 – Swissair Flight 306, a Sud Aviation Caravelle, crashes near Dürrenäsch, Switzerland due to an in-flight fire, killing all 80 on board.
 * 1957 – First flight of the Lockheed JetStar
 * 1957 – Douglas C-124A Globemaster II, 51-5173, en route from Larson AFB, Washington, crashed while attempting a landing at Binghamton Airport, Binghamton, New York. On final approach, just before touchdown, the airplane struck an embankment and crashed on the runway. The plane was delivering 20 tons of equipment for Link Aviation. The crew of 9 survived.
 * 1953 – Nos. 414, 422 and 444 Squadrons, comprising No. 4 Fighter Wing, flew from Canada to their new base at Baden Soellingen, Germany.
 * 1950 – Cpt Robert Wayne becomes the first pilot to be rescued from behind enemy lines by a helicopter
 * 1950 – Four F4U Corsair fighter-bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge (CV-45) intercept a twin-engine Soviet aircraft approaching Task Force 77 off Korea and shoot it down after it opens fire on them.
 * 1949 – First flight of the Avro 707 VX784
 * 1949 – First flight of the Bristol Brabazon.
 * 1948 – A U.S. Navy Vought F4U Corsair fighter from Naval Air Station New York crashes into a four-family home at 39-29 212th Street, Queens, New York, killing the pilot, 1st Lt. Roger Olsen, USMCR, 25, of New Rochelle, New York, and three civilian women, Mrs. Helen Raynor, Mrs Alice Cressmer, and Miss Louise Paul. The pilot, a 1943 Pensacola graduate, was on the first day of a two-week reserve training course. The plane impacted one block from the Bayside station of the Long Island Railroad
 * 1946 – First prototype Bell XP-83, 44-84990, bailed back to Bell Aircraft Company by the USAAF as a ramjet testbed, and modified with an engineer's station in the fuselage in lieu of the rear fuel tank and pylon for test ramjet under starboard wing, suffers fire in ramjet on flight out of Niagara Falls Airport, New York. Flames spread to wing, forcing Bell test pilot "Slick" Goodlin and engineer Charles Fay to bail out, twin-jet fighter impacting at ~1020 hrs. on farm in Amhurst, New York, ~13 miles from Niagara Airport, creating ~25 foot crater.
 * 1944 – Douglas A-26B-15-DL Invader, 41-39158, first assigned to Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Station, Boscombe Down on 11 July 1944 for six weeks' testing (but no RAF serial assigned), then to 2 Group for further evaluation, crashes this date when the upper turret cover left airframe, striking the vertical tail.
 * 1944 – No. 437 (Transport) Squadron was formed in England.
 * 1943 – Finding the red in the national insignia adopted in June 1943 for its military aircraft could cause confusion with Japanese markings during combat, the United States adopts a new marking consisting of a white star centered in a blue circle flanked by white rectangles, with the entire insignia outlined in blue. The new marking will remain in use until January 1947.
 * 1943 – Allied forces land at Lae, New Guinea. A small raid by nine Japanese planes destroys a tank landing ship off Lae. Later, the Japanese mount a strike of 80 aircraft; after U. S. Army Air Forces P-38 Lightnings shoot down 23, the rest attack Allied ships off Lae, damaging two tank landing ships.
 * 1942 – (Overnight) 251 British bombers attack Bremen, Germany. For the first time, Bomber Command uses three waves of Pathfinders – “illuminators” dropping flares followed by “visual markers” who drop colored target indicators followed by “backers-up” who drop incendiary bombs – To mark the target. Bremen suffers serious damage.
 * 1942 – On the night of 4-5th, Handley Page Hampden, AE436, of No. 144 Squadron RAF crashes on the remote Tsatsa Mountain in Sweden while en route from Sumburgh in Shetland to Afrikanda, Northern Russia, after being forced down to lower altitude by overheating engine. Pilot Officer D.I. Evans and passenger Cpl B.J. Sowerby survive with only slight injuries, three other members of crew die. Evans and Sowerby take three days to cross mountains and reach the village of Kvikkvokk, ~20 miles (32 km) to the south east. Wreckage of Hampden is re-discovered by three girl hikers at 5,000 ft (1,500 m) in August 1976, with remains of dead crew still in wreckage.
 * 1940 – Adolf Hitler orders German bombing attacks on London.
 * 1940 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious attack Italian airfields on Rhodes.
 * 1939 – Canadian Pilot Officer S. R. Henderson serving in No.206 Squadron, became the first Canadian to participate in an operational sortie during the Second World War when he served as the lead navigator in a bomber force attacking German targets.
 * 1939 – First British bombs of the war dropped on German targets, with a Bristol Blenheim attacking the German fleet.
 * 1939 – Supermarine Type 300, the prototype Spitfire to F.37/34, K5054, is wrecked when Flt. Lt. "Spinner" White misjudges his landing approach at Farnborough, bouncing several times before fighter noses over onto its back. Pilot dies in hospital four days later. Spitfire is not repaired.
 * 1936 – 4-5 – Beryl Markham makes the first east-to-west solo crossing of the Atlantic by a woman in a Percival Vega Gull, from Abingdon, Berkshire to Cape Breton Island
 * 1936 – Louise Thaden becomes the first woman to win the prestigious coast-to-coast Bendix trophy race.
 * 1933 – Florence Gunderson Klingensmith (3 September 1904 – 4 September 1933) was an American Aviator of the Golden Age of Air Racing. She was also a founding member of the Ninety-Nines, a women’s pilot group. She was one of the first women to participate in Air Races with men. Unfortunately, she paid the ultimate price when she was killed in the 1933 National Air Race in Cleveland, Ohio.
 * 1929 – First prototype, of three, Gloster Gorcocks, J7501, experimental single-seat, single-bay biplane interceptor, first delivered to the Royal Aircraft Establishment on 16 May 1928, breaks up in the air near Aldershot this date, the pilot bailing out successfully.
 * 1924 – First flight of the Naval Aircraft Factory TS as the all-metal Curtiss F4C-1
 * 1923 – Maiden Voyage of the first USA airship USS Shenandoah (ZR-1)
 * 1922 – Lt Jimmy Doolittle flies across the United States in under a day in a de Havilland DH.4. He takes 21 hours 19 min to fly from Pablo Beach, Florida to Rockwell Field, California.
 * 1913 – U.S. Army 11th Cavalry 1st Lt. Moss Lee Love becomes the 10th fatality in U.S. army aviation history when his Wright Model C biplane crashes near San Diego during practice for his Military Aviator Test. On 19 October 1917, the newly opened Dallas Love Field in Dallas is named in his honor. Joe Baugher lists the fatal aircraft accident for this date as being Burgess Model J, Signal Corps 18, which dove into the ground killing its pilot.
 * 1888 – Edward Hogan in Quebec makes the first parachute descents in Canada from a hot-air balloon.