Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/September 7

September 7


 * 2011 – Yak-Service Flight 9634, a Yakovlev Yak-42, crashes just outside of Yaroslavl, Russia due to pilot error, killing 44 of the 45 people on board. Many were players and staff of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team of the KHL, as the flight was destined for Minsk, Belarus for a league game.


 * 2010 – Alrosa Mirny Air Enterprise Flight 514, operated by Tupolev Tu-154M 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.


 * 2009 – P-827, a GAF Nomad N.24 A operated by the Indonesian Navy, crashes at Long Ampung Airport, killing five of the nine people on board.


 * 2009 – An Indonesian Air Force Government Aircraft Factories Nomad P837 on a routine flight crashes near a local village of Sekatak Matadau, Bulungan district in East Kalimantan killing 4 of the 9 passengers and crew.


 * 2007 – A Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low IV, 69-05794, of the 20th Special Operations Squadron, Hurlburt Field, crashes near Duke Field, Eglin Auxiliary Field 3, just before midnight when it suffers tail rotor gear box failure while in a hover. The helicopter was practicing a rescue extraction near a landing zone surrounded by trees more than 90 feet (27 m) tall and had just been brought into a hover at 150 feet (46 m) and was beginning to lower the rescue apparatus when the aircrew felt a shudder. Aircraft commander Lt. Col. Eugene Becker realizes that the tail rotor gears are failing, takes control of the aircraft and prepares to land. Once out of hover, it takes about 45 seconds to return to the LZ, and due to the confined space, Becker drops the chopper vertically but the shuddering worsens. "We knew something was very, very wrong", stated Becker. "all of the gear boxes were surging up and down and making quite a bit of racket." When the MH-53 is 20 feet (6.1 m) above the ground Becker pushes what is left of the rotor's power to the maximum in order to cushion the landing. As soon as the Pave Low hits the ground, the tail rotor fails and the chopper starts spinning and rolls to port, but the sponson fuel tanks keep it from rolling over. Of the seven crew, only two are injured: Col. William Nelson, a flight surgeon from the Air Force Special Operations Command Surgeon General's Office, receives a head injury but walks away from the accident; MH-53 aerial gunner A1C Bradley Jordan suffers a leg fracture. Both men are released from hospital the following day. Lt. Col. Becker is awarded the Koren Kolligian Jr. trophy, one of the Air Force's top safety awards, in July 2008. According to the award nomination, a landing any more forceful could have been fatal to the crew.


 * 2007 – CH-53D Sea Stallion (157146) from HMH-463 made nighttime hard landing in Al Anbar Province and later was written off.


 * 2004 – Indonesian human-rights and anti-corruption activist Munir Said Thalib dies of arsenic poisoning on a Garuda Indonesia flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The victim of an assassination, he apparently had been poisoned during a stopover in Singapore.


 * 1997 – First flight of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. It reaches an altitude of 15,000 feet in less than three minutes.


 * 1995 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-69 at 15:09:00 UTC. Mission highlights: Wake Shield Facility, SPARTAN.


 * 1988 – The McDonnell Douglas F-15 S/MTD (short takeoff and landing/maneuvering technology demonstrator) flies for the first time.


 * 1966 – Second (of five) Ling-Temco-Vought XC-142As, 62-5922, suffers failure of idler gear in number three engine gearbox during a pre-flight run-up at Edwards AFB, California. Entire gearbox has to be replaced. Investigation reveals problem with inadequately supported aluminum pin that serves as an axle for this gear, making misalignment and eventual failure inevitable, so a fix is designed and the starboard gearboxes of all XC-142s are modified.


 * 1965 – First flight of the AH-1 Cobra


 * 1956 – The Bell X-2 research aircraft is flown by Captain Iven C. Kincheloe to a new altitude record of 126,200 ft (38,466 m).


 * 1955 – First flight of the Sukhoi S-1, prototype of Su-7


 * 1951 – First flight of the Auster B.4 G-AMKL


 * 1946 – A Royal Air Force Gloster Meteor flown by Group Captain E. M. Donaldson establishes a new world absolute air speed record of 615.65 mph (990.79 km/h) off the coast of West Sussex, England, . The same day, a U. S. Army Air Forces Republic P-84 Thunderjet narrowly misses the world record, setting a United States speed record of 611 mph (983 km/hr).


 * 1944 – 108 B-29 Superfortresses bomb the Showa Steel Works in Anshan, Manchuria, from bases in China.


 * 1943 – P/O EM O’Donnell and crew in a Vickers Wellington of No. 407 Squadron, sank the German submarine U-669 to the west of the Bay of Biscay.


 * 1942 – Entered Service: Vought F4U Corsair with United States Marine Corps Marine Fighter Squadron 124


 * 1942 – First flight of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator.


 * 1940 – First flight of the Blohm & Voss BV 222


 * 1940 – Hermann Göring orders the Luftwaffe to stop targeting British airfields and attack London itself instead.


 * 1940 – 7-8 – The largest mass air combat in history takes place over Britain, with 1,200 British and German aircraft operating in an area of only 24 x 48 km (15 x 30 miles)


 * 1938 – A mass flight of 17 U. S. Navy aircraft makes a 2,570-statute mile (4,138 km) nonstop flight from San Diego, California, to Hawaii in 17 hours 21 min.


 * 1934 – 16 – 9,537 km race over Europe and North Africa and a speed trial of the Challenge 1934 contest.


 * 1933 – 7-8 – six US Navy Consolidated P2Y flying boats make a non-stop formation flight from Norfolk, Virginia to the Panama Canal, covering 2,059 miles (3,314 km) in 25 hours 20 min.


 * 1932 – Thomas Settle and Winfield Bushnell set a new balloon distance record of 1,550 km (963 miles) between Basle, Switzerland and Vilna, Poland.


 * 1931 – Lowell Bayles wins the 1931 Thompson Trophy in the Gee Bee Model Z racer at the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio, with a speed of 236.24 mph (380.42 km/hr).


 * 1930 – Capt. John Owen Donaldson, World War I ace (eight victories), after winning two races at an American Legion air meet in Philadelphia, is killed when his plane crashes during a stunt-flying performance. He had won the MacKay Gold Medal for taking first place in the Army's transcontinental air race in October 1919. Greenville Army Air Field, South Carolina, is later renamed Donaldson Air Force Base for the Greenville native.


 * 1923 – First flight of the Handley Page Type S


 * 1917 – First flight of the Port Victoria P.V.8


 * 1909 – The U. S. Army’s first “aerodrome”, an airfield or airport, is established in College Park, Maryland.


 * 1909 – Eugene Lefebvre is killed in the crash of an aeroplane when his controls jam at Juvisy France when his controls jam. Lefebvre dies, becoming the first ‘pilot’ in the world to lose his life in a powered-heavier-than-air-craft.


 * 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France for the first time successfully.


 * 1904 – The Wright brothers first used their weight-and-derrick-assisted take-off device in order to make themselves independent of the wind and weather. When the heavy weight was released, the rope pulled the aircraft, which sat on a flatbed truck, over the launching track, thus assisting its take-off.


 * 1804 – Zambeccari and two companions, Grasetti and Andreoli, ascend in Bologna attempting to cross the Adriatic, but have to be rescued after one day at sea.