Portal:Aviation/Today in aviation

2023 - First flight of the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider
2010 – An Israeli Air Force F-16I crashes in Makhtesh Ramon while on a training over the Negev desert in southern Israel, killing both the pilot and navigator of the plane.^[1]

2009 – Kingfisher Airlines Flight 4124, operated by ATR 72-212 A VT-KAC skidded off the runway after landing at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. The aircraft suffered substantial damage but all 46 passengers and crew escaped unharmed.

2008 – Ryanair Flight 4102 was a flight operated by a Boeing 737-8AS, registered EI-DYG, from Frankfurt-Hahn Airport, Germany, to Rome Ciampino Airport, Italy, that, on 10 November 2008 suffered multiple bird strikes. Of the 172 people on board, two crew and eight passengers were transported to hospital and received treatment for minor injuries.

2005 – The Boeing 777-200LR establishes a new world record for nonstop distance by a commercial airplane, flying 11,664 nautical miles in 22 hours and 42 min from Hong Kong to London.

2003 – The final flight of British Airways Concorde G-BOAD is flown from London Heathrow (LHR) to New York’s JFK, to deliver the aircraft to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum. It was JFK’s very last Concorde movement.

1982 – An Air Combat Manoeuvring Range was opened at Cold Lake. It was the first ACMR built for non-US forces.

1972 – Southern Airways Flight 49 from Birmingham, Alabama is hijacked and, at one point, is threatened with crashing into the nuclear installation at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After two days, the plane lands in Havana, Cuba, where the hijackers are jailed by Fidel Castro.

1971 – In the 1971 Indian Ocean Vickers Viscount crash, a Merpati Nusantara Airlines plane crashes into the Indian Ocean off Padang, Indonesia in bad weather, killing all 66 on board.

1970 – The first of two Russian, unmanned lunar rovers, Lunokhod 1, was launched. As mission Luna 17, the craft was the first remote-controlled robot to land on another celestial body, sending back images and data to Russia until the following September.

1963 – SAC Boeing WB-47E Stratojet, 51-2420, built as B-47E-60-BW and modified to weather reconnaissance variant, making emergency landing at Lajes Air Base, Azores, skids into parking ramp, strikes Boeing Boeing C-97C Stratofreighter, 50-0690, loses port inner engine nacelle (numbers 2 and 3), starboard outer nacelle (number 6) and starboard wingtip. Fire damages port inner wing above lost nacelle. Crew survives.

1959 – The combination of a blizzard and a blocked runway at Malmstrom AFB, Great Falls, Montana lead to the loss of three Northrop F-89 Scorpion aircraft. During a blizzard the runway was unusable due to a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star which had sheared it's landing gear on touch down. The Scorpions and an undisclosed number of other aircraft were returning to the base low on fuel and in near zero visibility. Four were lost in two of the crashed planes while the two man crew of the third parachuted to safety. No one was injured in the T-33 incident.

1958 – A TCA Vickers Viscount parked at Idlewild Airport, New York while awaiting its passengers was destroyed by fire after it was struck by a Lockheed 1049D Super Constellation of Seaboard & Western Airlines which had crashed while taking off. The two crew members on board survived the accident.

1950 – AA USAF Boeing B-50 Superfortress of the 43d Bomb Wing on a routine weapons ferrying flight between Goose Bay, Labrador and its home base at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, loses two of four engines. To maintain altitude it jettisons empty Mark 4 nuclear bomb casing just before 1600 hrs. at 10,500 feet (3,200 m) above the St. Lawrence River near the town of St. Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, about 90 miles (140 km) northeast of Quebec, Canada. HE in the casing observed detonating upon impact in the middle of the twelve-mile (19 km)-wide river, blast felt for 25 miles (40 km). Official Air Force explanation at the time is that the Superfortress released three conventional 500-pound HE bombs.

1949 – First flight of the Sikorsky H-19, an improved version of HRP helicopter which also will serve as H-21 Shawnee and H-21 Workhorse.

1943 – Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress 42-37831 suffered a hydraulics and brakes failure at RAF Snetterton Heath and was written off.

1942 – USS Chenango (CVE-28) flies off 75 U. S. Army Air Forces P-40 Warhawk fighters, which establish a base at Port Lyautey, French Morocco. SBD Dauntless dive bombers from USS Ranger damage the French battleship Jean Bart in Casablanca harbor.

1941 – First George Cross was awarded posthumously to LAC KM Gravel for his attempted rescue of his pilot from burning wreckage of a DH 82 C Tiger Moth at Calgary, Alberta.

1936 – U.S. Navy Aviation Cadet William H. Jones, on approach to USS Ranger in a Grumman F3F-1, accidentally flies into the foremast of plane guard destroyer. Plane and body sink in 4,600 feet of water.

1933 – Ronald Evans (Captain, USN Ret.), American astronaut was born (d. 1990). Evans was the command module pilot of Apollo 17, the last scheduled manned mission to the moon for the United States. As of 2007, he holds the record of more time in lunar orbit than anyone else in the world. Evans flew F-8 Crusader aircraft from the carrier USS Ticonderoga during a period of seven months in Vietnam combat operation. The total flight time accrued during his career was 5,100 hours, including 4,600 hours in jet aircraft.

1932 – British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin states in a speech that “The bomber will always get through”.

1915 – Theodore Macauly of Toronto was the first to pilot a twin-engined flying boat in Canada.

1907 – Louis Bleriot introduces what will become the modern configuration of the airplane. His Blériot VII has an enclosed or covered fuselage (body), a single set of wings (monoplane), a tail unit, and a propeller in front of the engine.

1907 – Henry Farman becomes the first European to be airborne in a powered heavier-than-air machine for longer than Wilbur Wright‘s 59 s. on 17 December 1903 when he flies for 1 min. 14 s. He covers a distance of 1030 m (3,379 ft).

1904 – Wilbur Wright flies the Wright Flyer II a distance of 3 miles near Dayton, Ohio, the first flight of longer than five minutes.

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