Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/March 15

March 15

• 2012 – A Royal Norwegian Air Force C-130J Super Hercules crashes into Mount Kebnekaise, killing all five people on board and triggering an avalanche.

• 2011 – A U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle overshoots the runway at Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport in Djibouti, Djibouti, and crashes into a fence. No one is injured. Investigators blame the accident on a melted throttle part and pilot confusion and inattention, as well as the inability of any remote pilot to react to cues such as wind rush or high engine pitch that would suggest to the pilot of a manned aircraft that the aircraft was approaching the runway too steeply and at too high a speed.

• 2010 – Two United States Navy Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet fighters from VFA-122 collided in mid-air at 2200 hrs., sending one crashing to the Nevada desert. One pilot ejected safely before his aircraft crashed near Naval Air Station Fallon and a second pilot landed the single-seat jet safely at Fallon.

• 2009 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-119 at 23:43 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 15A: S6 Truss, Solar Arrays.

• 2008 – Deceased: Vicki Van Meter, 26, American pilot, youngest-pilot distance-flying record setter, suicide.

• 2002 – An Aerotaxi Antonov AN-2 crashes in Baez, Cuba, killing all 16 passengers. The aircraft plunges into a pond after a wing separated.

• 1996 – The Fokker aircraft manufacturer is declared bankrupt.

• 1996 – A Cecil Field Naval Air Station Lockheed S-3 Viking crashed shortly after take-off near Puerto Rico. Navy officials called off the search for the two pilots on 16 March.

• 1993 – Iranian Air Force bombers attack a hospital in Raniya, Iraq.

• 1985 – Pan Am puts the Airbus A300 B airliner into service, on its route from Miami, Florida to Mexico City.

• 1985 – – American Eagle Airlines, a commuter subsidiary of American Airlines, begins service.

• 1983 – No. 6 FTTU that had trained all Voodoo techs since 1961, is disbanded.

• 1982 – A Royal Swedish Air Force Saab Draken crashed into the Baltic, pilot killed.

• 1974 – A Sterling Airways Caravelle (OY-STK) caught fire while taxiing to depart in Tehran, Iran. The right main gear collapses, rupturing the fuel line, resulting in the deaths of 15 of the 96 people on the plane.

• 1972 – NASA announces Shuttle program. Since its inception in 1958, NASA has accomplished many great scientific and technological feats in air and space. NASA technology also has been adapted for many nonaerospace uses by the private sector. NASA remains a leading force in scientific research and in stimulating public interest in aerospace exploration, as well as science and technology in general. Perhaps more importantly, our exploration of space has taught us to view Earth, ourselves, and the universe in a new way.

• 1972 – Sterling Airways Flight 296 crashed near Kalba in the United Arab Emirates on a flight from Colombo to Copenhagen in Denmark with a stop over in Dubai. The Sud Aviation Caravelle was registration OY-STL. 112 passengers and crew died in the crash which was attributed to pilot error. It was the deadliest air disaster in the history of the United Arab Emirates.

• 1971 – First Argus exceeds 10,000 hrs on a 407 Squadron mission, commanded by Maj Mike Bradley.

• 1967 – First flight of the Sikorsky MH-53, SAR long-range version of the CH-53 A for the USAF.

• 1967 – Piedmont leases two Boeing 727 s to use pending delivery of their Boeing 737 s. This also marks the day that Piedmont places the Fairchild FH-227 into service.

• 1967 – Air Southwest is incorporated by Herb Kelleher and Rollin King. They would go on to grow it into low-cost juggernaut Southwest Airlines.

• 1964 – A Blue Angels pilot is killed during an attempted emergency landing at Apalach Airport near Apalachicola, Florida when his Grumman F-11A Tiger, experiences difficulties while transiting from West Palm Beach, Florida back to the Blue Angels home base at NAS Pensacola, Florida. Lt. George L. Neale, 29, who flew in the Number Four slot position of the diamond formation, was returning from a demonstration at West Palm Beach with one other of the six team jets and an Douglas R5D Skymaster support plane when he radios Tyndall Air Force Base, near Panama City, Florida, for emergency landing permission when he suffers mechanical problems S of Apalachicola. But, spotting the local airport, he attempts a landing there, ejecting on final approach at 1115 hrs. as the fighter comes down ~250 yards short of the runway. Although he clears the airframe at ~150–200 feet altitude, his chute does not have sufficient time to deploy and he is killed. He is survived by his wife Donna, of Pensacola, Florida, and his mother, Mrs. Katherine Neale, of Avalon, Pennsylvania. The Navy said that the cause of the accident is being investigated.

• 1963 – A Lloyd Aereo Boliviano Douglas DC-6 B (CP-707) crashes into a mountain in Peru, killing all 39 aboard. The pilots were flying VFR (Visual Flight Rules) while operating in IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) conditions.

• 1962 – Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 was a Super Constellation propliner chartered by the United States military that disappeared over the Western Pacific Ocean. The aircraft was transporting 93 Army men and 3 South Vietnamese from Travis Air Force Base, California to Saigon, Vietnam. After refueling at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, the Super Constellation was en route to Clark Air Base in the Philippines when it disappeared. All 107 aboard were declared missing and presumed dead.

• 1961 – Capt. Gary L. Herod of the Texas Air National Guard was killed when his Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star trainer crashed in a vacant field in suburban Houston, Texas. He was posthumously award the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroism in not ejecting, but rather staying with his plane and guiding it to a vacant field saving the lives and homes of area residents.

• 1960 – Introduction: Convair B-58 Hustler

• 1957 – A U. S. Navy ZPG-2 nonrigid airship sets a new unrefueled endurance record when it lands, having remained aloft for 264 hours (11 days) 12 min, beating the record set by the Graf Zeppelin in 1929.

• 1951 – A QANTAS flying boat makes a survey flight from Sydney to Valparaíso via Easter Island, the airline's first flight across the South Pacific.

• 1950 – AAvro Lincoln B Mk.2, RF511, of No.230 Operational Conversion Unit, crashes on Carnedd Llewelyn near Bethesda, Wales, this date.

• 1949 – Second prototype of three Vought XF7U-1 Cutlass twin-tailed fighters, BuNo 122473, lost on test flight over the Chesapeake Bay, out of NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. Test pilot William H. B. Millar killed.

• 1947 – Retired: Vought V-173

• 1946 – The RCAF Fighter Wing, Nos. 411, 412, 416 and 443 Squadrons, was disbanded. It was serving with the British Air Forces of Occupation.

• 1944 – (overnight)—Making a 3,500-nautical mile (6,481-km) round trip from Kwajalein Island, 13 U. S. Army Air Forces Seventh Air Force B-24 Liberators strike Japanese bases at Truk Atoll.

• 1941 – Philippine Airlines begins service with a Beechcraft Model 18 NPC-54 with flights from Manila to Baguio.

• 1938 – de Havilland D. H. 88 Comet racer G-ACSS begins a record-breaking flight from England to New Zealand and back for what some regard as the most notable success of the Comet’s achievement: a return flight time of 10 days 21 hours 22 min.

• 1932 – Alan Bean, American astronaut, was born. Bean was the fourth man to walk on the moon at the age of thirty-seven years in November 1969.

• 1918 – After an extensive conversion, HMS Furious re-enters service with the Royal Navy as the world’s first aircraft carrier with aircraft lifts (elevators).

• 1916 – The first Aero Squadron begins operations with Gen. John J. Pershing in a punitive expedition against Mexico and Pancho Villa.

• 1913 – The US Army forms the 1st Aero Squadron under Capt Charles Chandler at Texas City to scout for Mexican incursions along the border.