Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/December 4

December 4

• 2012 – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) approves the deployment of MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missiles in a 40-km (25-mile)-wide zone along Turkey's border with Syria.[1]

• 2011 – Iran announces its capture of the CIA UAV a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), claiming to have shot it down. The United States acknowledges the loss of the UAV for the first time, but denies that it was shot down.[2]

• 2010 – Dagestan Airlines Flight 372, a Tupolev Tu-154, skids off the runway during emergency landing at Russia's Domodedovo International Airport, killing two of the 160 passengers on board and injuring 87.

• 2003 – 2003 Polish Air Force Mi-8 crash: Operated by the 36th Special Aviation Regiment with Poland’s Prime Minister Leszek Miller on board crashed near Piaseczno, just outside of Warsaw.

• 1998 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-88 at 03:35:34 EST (8:35:34 GMT). Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 2A: Node 1. First Shuttle ISS assembly flight.

• 1991 – Pan Am, bankrupt since August 11, is finally dissolved after 63 years of operation.

• 1984 – Kuwait Airways Flight 221, flying from Kuwait City to Karachi, Pakistan, is hijacked by four Lebanese men and diverted to Tehran. Four hostages are killed and dumped on the tarmac, and the remaining passengers, especially Americans, are tortured every 5 min. Iranians eventually raid the aircraft and rescue all, but the hijackers were later released.

• 1983 – In reprisal to an attack on United States military bases in Beirut, 28 United States Navy A-6 Intruders attack suspected terrorist bases in Libya.

• 1977 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 653, a Boeing 737, is hijacked under mysterious circumstances; minutes later, the airliner crashes into a swamp near Tanjung Kupang, Malaysia at a steep angle, killing all 100 people aboard.

• 1976 – A fire in a hangar at HMAS Albatross (NAS Nowra), Australia, damages or destroys 12 of 13 Grumman S-2E Trackers of the Royal Australian Navy, assigned to squadrons VC851 and VS816. A 19-year old junior member of the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy later admits to arson, but is found mentally unstable at his court martial.

• 1974 – Martinair Flight 138, a Douglas DC-8 on a charter flight, crashed into a mountain shortly before landing, on approach to Katunayake, Sri Lanka for a refueling stop; killing all aboard – 182 Indonesian hajj pilgrims bound for Mecca, and 9 crew members.

• 1969 – A Boeing 707-328B operating the Caracas-Point-à-Pitre sector of Air France Flight 212, crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff from Simón Bolívar International Airport with the loss of all 62 on board.

• 1967 – The A-7 A Corsair II strike aircraft enters combat for the first time, operating from the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CVA-61) over Vietnam.

• 1965 – The 1965 Carmel mid-air collision; Eastern Air Lines Flight 853, a Lockheed Super Constellation, collides with TWA Flight 42, a Boeing 707 over Carmel, New York; Flight 42 makes an emergency landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport; Flight 853 is forced to crash land on Hunt Mountain near Danbury, Connecticut, killing three passengers and one of the pilots on board; no casualties were reported on board Flight 42.

• 1965 – Gemini 7 launched.

• 1961 – The National Air and Space Museum receives the Douglas C-54 transport “Sacred Cow” used by US Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.

• 1959 – Ensign Albert Joe Hickman was practising aircraft carrier landings as part of a training mission conducted from Naval Air Station Miramar, California. When his McDonnell F3H Demon suddenly stalled, Hickman was still 2,000 feet (610 m) above ground. He could easily have ejected from the cockpit in time to save his own life. Below him, however, and directly in the path of the crippled plane was Hawthorne Elementary School, where more than 700 children were playing in the schoolyard. Hickman chose to remain in the cockpit. He somehow maneuvered the descending plane away from the school, assuring the safety – and probably saving the lives – of several hundred people. Now at an altitude of only 60 feet (18 m), he no longer had the option to eject. The plane crashed into a nearby canyon, exploding on impact, and Albert J. Hickman was killed. A school in the San Diego community of Mira Mesa was later named after him. American Legion Post 460 in San Diego, Department of California, is named the Albert J. Hickman Post.

• 1958 – The last Avro CF-100 was rolled from the production line at Malton, Ontario.

• 1958 – First flight of the Baade B-152 V1 Prototype

• 1955 – Glenn L. Martin, founder of the Glenn L. Martin Company, dies at age 69.

• 1952 – First flight of the Grumman S-2 Tracker

• 1950 – A Pan American World Airways Boeing 307 Strato-Clipper sets a new record time for a commercial flight from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Los Angeles California, making the trip in 7 hours 20 min.

• 1945 – Roberta Bondar, Canadian astronaut, was born. Roberta Lynn Bondar, PhD, DSc, MD, is Canada’s first woman astronaut and the world’s first neurologist in space.

• 1945 – A de Havilland Sea Vampire Mk 5 became the first jet aircraft to intentionally take off and land from an aircraft carrier, HMS Ocean.

• 1944 – First flight of the Bristol Brigand

• 1943 – U. S. Navy carrier aircraft strike Kwajalein Atoll. Those from USS Essex (CV-9) and USS Lexington (CV-16) concentrate on Roi, where they shoot down 28 Japanese aircraft and destroy 19 on the ground, sink a large cargo ship, and damage the light cruiser Isuzu; those from USS Enterprise (CV-6) and USS Yorktown (CV-10) strike Kwajalein Island, where they destroy 18 float planes, sink three merchant ships, and damage the light cruiser Nagara. A combined total of five American aircraft are lost. Twenty-nine Yorktown aircraft raid Wotje later in the day. Japanese aircraft attack the retiring carrier force during the afternoon and overnight, damaging Lexington with a torpedo in exchange for the loss of 29 Japanese planes.

• 1943 – The U. S. Navy submarine USS Sailfish (SS-192) torpedoes and sinks the Japanese aircraft carrier Chūyō near Hachijōjima with the loss of over 1,243 lives, including 20 American prisoners-of-war.

• 1942 – USAAF bombers make their first raid on Italy.

• 1940 – Operational control of RAF Coastal Command is transferred to the Royal Navy, although Coastal Command remains part of the Royal Air Force. Air protection of British merchant shipping soon begins to improve.

• 1938 – First flight of the Miles M.18

• 1930 – Canadian Cub I was first flown for 90 min, at Montréal/Saint-Hubert Airport, by E. J. Cooper.

• 1929 – Curtiss B-2 Condor, 29-28, assigned to the 96th Bomb Squadron, Langley Field, Virginia, crashes at Goodwater, Alabama, with 69 total flight hours on airframe. Pilots 2nd Lt. James M. Gillespie and Ernest G. Schmidt KWF. This was the second of three crashes of the 13 total B-2s the USAAC acquired.

• 1912 – Pappy Boyington, American pilot, is born (d. 1988). Colonel Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, USMC, was an American fighter ace. He commanded the famous U. S. Marine Corps squadron, VMF-214 (“The Black Sheep Squadron”) during World War II. Boyington became a prisoner of war later in the war. He was awarded the Navy Cross and the Medal of Honor.

• 1908 – The Englishman John Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara makes a flight of 1,350 feet (410 m) in a Voisin biplane at Issy-les-Moulineaux in France. He becomes one of the guiding lights of early British aviation and is issued the first British pilot’s license, then called an aviator’s certificate.

• 1894 – German meteorologist Arthur Berson climbs up with a balloon to 9,155 metres (30,036 ft).