Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/October

October 2

• 2009 – Swedish airline Feel Air is established.

• 2009 – Boeing 737-4H6, registered 9M-MMR operated by Malaysia Airlines, is substantially damaged when the port main undercarriage collapses while the aircraft is parked at the gate at Kuching International Airport.

• 2009 – Serbian airline Jat Airways resumes flights following the resolution of the dispute with their maintenance company.

• 2009 – A Fuerza Aérea Mexicana Cessna 182S Skylane (FAM-5498) crashes near San José Querendaro, Michoacán, Mexico. The aircraft on a reconnaissance flight from Morelia Airport crashed in the mountains of Michoacán with 3 crew fatalities.

• 2009 – A Yemeni Air Force Mikoyan MiG-21 Fishbed crashes during a low-flying exercise due to mechanical failure.

• 2001 – Once known as the “Flying Bank” thanks to its exemplary financial stability, Swissair grounds its fleet after running out of cash. The failure is the culmination of a series of bad investments combined with the sales downturn following the September 11th attacks. Most of its routes and planes would eventually be taken over by Swiss.

• 1997 – An Grumman F-14A-120-GR Tomcat, BuNo 161425, converted to F-14A+, later redesignated F-14B, of VF-101, based at NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the North Carolina coast Thursday afternoon, moments after the two crew eject. "A Coast Guard helicopter later plucked the Tomcat's radar intercept officer from 4- to 5-foot seas, but rescuers were still searching for the jet's pilot after nightfall. The Navy declined to identify either of the crewmen...until their families were notified. The radar intercept officer was undergoing a medical examination at Oceana Thursday night, and was reportedly in good condition."The U.S. Navy suspends search for the missing aviator on 5 October. The cause of the crash was not known, the Navy said in a statement. A failure of left horizontal stab linkage—while the trailing edge was down—threw the plane into violent right-hand rolls. When the pilot put in corrective stick, the plane would pitch down violently due to a stuck left-hand horizontal stab. This flight condition was unrecoverable. The RIO pulled the ejection handle at 7000 feet. The mishap pilot died when his ejection seat failed.

• 1996 – Aeroperú Flight 603, a Boeing 757, crashes into the ocean off Pasamayo, Peru, because of a maintenance error. All 70 people on board are killed.

• 1990 – (2-6) The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Independence (CV-62) operates in the Persian Gulf, demonstrating the feasibility of such operations as the Coalition build-up in the confrontation with Iraq over Kuwait continues.

• 1990 – In the Guangzhou Baiyun aircraft collision, the hijacked Xiamen Airlines Flight 8301, a Boeing 737, clips China Southwest Airlines Flight 2402, a Boeing 707, during landing at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, and collides with China Southern Airlines Flight 2812, a Boeing 757, killing a total of 128.

• 1984 – The US Navy awards McDonnell Douglas a $US 438 million contract to develop the T-45 Goshawk

• 1981 – United States president Ronald Reagan restarts the B-1 program by announcing the order of 100 B-1Bs for the USAF.

• 1980 – A Westland Sea King performs the rescue of 22 passengers from the Swedish ship Finneagle in the North Sea.

• 1972 – An Aeroflot Il-18 crashes on takeoff in Adler, Russia, killing 109 people.

• 1971 – British European Airways Flight 706, a Vickers Vanguard, breaks up in mid-air due to corrosion and crashes near Aarsele, Belgium, killing all 63 passengers and crew on board.

• 1970 – In what is known as the Wichita State Crash, a Martin 4-0-4 aircraft crashes near Silver Plume, Colorado; it is one of two planes carrying the Wichita State University football team to Logan, Utah for a game; twenty-eight passengers, the plane's captain and a flight attendant die out of forty passengers on board.

• 1969 – Introduction: Hawker Siddeley Nimrod

• 1966 – First flight of the Grumman Gulfstream II

• 1963 – Second of two Short SC.1 VTOL experimental testbeds, XG905, c/n SH. 1815, a compact tailless delta monoplane with five Rolls-Royce RB108 engines, one for propulsion and four for lift, crashes while attempting landing at Belfast, Northern Ireland. Gyros failed, producing false references which caused the auto-stabiliser system to fly the aircraft into the ground. The failure occurred at less than 30 feet, giving pilot J.R. Green no time to revert to manual control. Airframe impacted inverted, killing pilot.

• 1957 – A Royal Canadian Navy McDonnell F2H-3 Banshee, BuNo 126403 of VF-870, suffers flight control problems during carrier qualifications on HMCS Bonaventure (CVL 22) off southeast coast of Nova Scotia. Commanders order pilot Lt. Howard Cooper to return to naval air station HMCS Shearwater, Nova Scotia 30 mi (48 km) north for repairs, but Cooper flies out to sea and runs out of fuel; a second Banshee pilot had determined the errant aircraft's approximate heading by tracking Cooper's radio signals, but the missing aircraft and pilot are not found after 4 days of intensive searching. On 2 June: 1964, Canadian fishing trawler Barbara Dawn snags a wrecked jet in her nets 70 mi (113 km) southwest of Sable Island; fishermen briefly observe entire aircraft before forward half breaks off and sinks, tail section is recovered, and RCN investigators are able to identify wreckage as 126403 based on serial-numbered parts.

• 1956 – First flight of the Hughes TH-55 Osage

• 1948 – In the Bukken Bruse disaster, a Det Norske Luftfartsselskap Short Sandringham flying boat, crashes upon landing in Trondheim, Norway; 19 are killed; Bertrand Russell is among the 24 survivors.

• 1946 – The AFHQ selected Avro design for a new all-weather jet fighter to be named XC-100.

• 1946 – First flight of the Vought F6U Pirate, a prototype of the F6U Pirate

• 1945 – A U.S. Navy Martin PBM Mariner flying boat carrying Rear Admiral William Sample and eight others disappears near Wakayama, Japan while on a familiarization flight. The wreckage and their bodies will not be discovered under 19 November 1948.

• 1944 – No. 435 (Transport) and 436 (Transport) Squadrons were formed in England.

• 1944 – A B-25D bomber #41-30114 crashes in the Mojave Desert while on a pilot training mission. The plane stalls, spins and crashes into the ground, killing pilot 1st Lt George D. Rosado, copilot WASP Marie Michell Robinson, and crew chief S/Sgt Gordon L. Walker.

• 1943 – Second prototype Arado Ar 234 V2 crashes at Rheine near Munster after suffering fire in port wing, failure of both engines, and various instrumentation failure, the airframe diving into the ground from 4,000 feet (1,200 m), killing pilot Flugkapitän Selle.

• 1941 – Heini Dittmar sets a new airspeed record of 1,004 km/h (624 mph) in a Messerschmitt Me 163A. The record is unofficial because the flight (and the Me 163 programme) is kept secret.

• 1940 – The first ground-radar-controlled aerial victory at night takes place as the Luftwaffe’s dunkele Nachtjagd (“dark nightfighting, ” abbreviated as Dunaja) technique – In which ground-based radar is used to control night fighters until they come within visual range of a target – has its first success. A Freya radar is used to coach the Dorner Do 17Z-10 night fighter of Leutnant Ludwig Becker to within visual range of a British Vickers Wellington bomber over the Netherlands, allowing him to shoot it down.

• 1938 – First flight of the Dewoitine D.520

• 1934 – A Hillman's Airways de Havilland Dragon Rapide crashes into the English Channel off Folkestone, Kent due to pilot error, killing all 7 on board.

• 1929 – First flight of the Acme Sportsman

• 1926 – An Air Union Blériot 155 catches fire in mid-air and crashes at Leigh, Kent while the pilot attempts to make an emergency landing at Penshurst Airfield. Both members of crew and all five passengers are killed. This is the first in-flight fire occurring on an airliner.

• 1923 – First flight of the de Havilland Humming Bird

• 1920 – U.S. Navy Lt. Cdr. William Merrill Corry, Jr. (5 October 1889 – 6 October 1920), of Quincy, Florida, designated Naval Aviator No. 23 in March 1916, while on a flight from Long Island, New York, with another pilot, the aircraft crashes, with Corry earning the Medal of Honor "for heroic service in attempting to rescue a brother officer from a flame-enveloped airplane near Hartford, Connecticut. On 2 October 1920, an airplane in which Lieutenant Commander Corry was a passenger crashed and burst into flames. He was thrown 30 feet clear of the plane and, though injured, rushed back to the burning machine and endeavored to release the pilot. In so doing he sustained serious burns, from which he died four days later." In 1923, Corry Field, a new satellite airfield for Naval Air Station Pensacola, is named in his honor. Three U.S. Navy destroyers have been named USS Corry, a Clemson-class in 1921, a Gleaves-class in 1941, and a Gearing-class, in 1945.

• 1918 – The Kettering Bug pilotless airplane being developed by Charles F. Kettering makes its first successful unmanned flight test, albeit for only nine seconds.

• 1910 – The first mid-air collision takes place near Milan. Both pilots survive, but one is badly injured.

October 3

• 2013 – Associated Aviation Flight 361 was an Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia on a domestic charter flight operated on 3 October 2013 by Associated Airlines Limited out of the domestic wing of Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos, en route to Akure Airport, Ondo State. It crashed shortly after take off, killing 15 persons onboard. 5 survived.[1]

• 2009 – A Fuerza Aérea Boliviano Aérospatiale Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama Helicopter (FAB-730) from the Escuadrón 511 crashes into a building wall on the Pampa near the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia leaving 4 crew dead, 1 crew member injured and 1 civilian on the ground injured.

• 2008 – Deceased: Edsel Dunford, 73, American aerospace engineer, cancer.

• 2006 – Hakan Ekinci hijacks Turkish Airlines Flight 1476, a Boeing 737-400, over Greece, demanding to be flown to Rome, Italy, to speak to Pope Benedict XVI. Greek and Italian F-16 Fighting Falcons escort the plane to a landing in Brindisi, Italy, where Ekinci is arrested. No one is injured in the incident.

• 2002 – nited States Navy Grumman F-14A Tomcat, BuNo 162594, coded AD 136, of VF-101, suffers dual compressor stalls, both engines shut down, during routine training flight, crashing in the Gulf of Mexico on mission out of NAS Key West, Florida. Pilot and instructor eject safely at 5,000 feet (1,500 m) and are rescued with only minor injuries by a Sikorsky UH-3 Sea King helicopter. On 5 May 2006, one of this Tomcat's tailfins is discovered on isolated beach W of Cork, Ireland, having floated 4,900 miles (7,900 km.) across the Atlantic. This was the sixteenth and last Tomcat lost by VF-101 during 30 years of operation.

• 1985 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-51-J at 15:15:30 UTC. Mission highlights: Second classified DoD mission; DSCS satellite deployment; first flight of Atlantis.

• 1967 – William J. Knight sets a new airspeed record in a North American X-15, of Mach 6.72 (4,543 mph, 7,297 km/h). This is the fastest flight that the X-15 will make.

• 1965 – The final elements of the U. S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) to arrive in Vietnam reach its base at An Khe, South Vietnam, bringing the division to full strength there. The division will be the first to place the CH-47 Chinook helicopter in combat; the Chinook’s ability to carry artillery quickly across rough terrain will revolutionize ground warfare.

• 1963 – The DH 106 Comet aircraft were retired from RCAF service.

• 1962 – Project Mercury – Sigma 7 launched from Cape Canaveral, with Astronaut Wally Schirra aboard for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight.

• 1959 – Five ex-RCAF T-33 s were handed over to Athens in Greece.

• 1953 – Flying a Douglas XF4D-1, U. S. Navy Lieutenant Commander James F. Verdin sets a world airpseed record over a 3 km (1.9 mi) course of 752.944 mph (1,211.487 km/hr). It is the first time that a carrier-capable combat aircraft in its normal configuration sets a world speed record.

• 1951 – HS-1 is commissioned, the US Navy's first ASW helicopter squadron

• 1950 – A U. S. Navy HO3 S-1 helicopter from the light cruiser USS Worcester (CL-144) is assigned to assist minesweepers clearing the harbor at Wonsan, Korea. It is one of the first efforts to use helicopters to assist in naval minesweeping.

• 1949 – The first (of only two) prototypes of the Kellett XR-10 helicopter, 45-22793, crashes due to a control system failure, killing Kellett's chief test pilot, Dave Driskill. The project was abandoned shortly thereafter.

• 1946 – A Berlin-bound 4 engine Douglas C-54 named 'Flagship New England' crashed into a mountainside outside of Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador. The flight, operated by American Overseas Airlines was mostly carrying wives and children of US Army personnel serving in post-war Germany. All 39 people on board died. At the time, it was the worst accident of its kind among US civilian airlines.

• 1945 – Captured Focke-Achgelis Fa 223 V14, which on 6 September 1945 became the first helicopter to fly across the English Channel when it was moved from Cherbourg to RAF Beaulieu, crashes on third test flight at RAF Beaulieu, when a driveshaft failed. The accident was thought to be due to a failure to correctly tension the steel cables which secured the engine, despite warnings from Luftwaffe helicopter pilot Helmut Gerstenhauer.

• 1942 – The first A4 rocket, later dubbed the V-2 flies from Peenemünde, covering 190 km (119 miles) in 296 seconds at five times the speed of sound, reaching an altitude of 84.5 km (53 miles).

• 1941 – The first prototype Heinkel He 177A Greif, V1, CB+RP, is destroyed on landing.

• 1935 – Italy invades Ethiopia from its colony in Eritrea, beginning the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. The Italian expeditionary force has 150 aircraft – Including Savoia-Marchetti SM.81, Caproni Ca.113, and Caproni Ca.133 bombers, Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boats, and IMAM R.37bis strategic reconnaissance planes – while the serviceable portion of the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force consists only of three small, obsolete biplanes.

• 1934 – Martin B-12A, 33-171, c/n 545, of the 11th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Group, crashed into Inyo National Forest, California, 3 killed, one bailed out. Surveyed at March Field, California, 7 January 1935. This accident resulted in the grounding of all B-12s. Fault traced to wing and aileron flutter and a backlash developed by the props when the engine was shut down.

• 1931 – 3-5 – Hugh Herndon and Clyde Pangborn make the first non-stop flight across the Pacific Ocean, from Samushiro Beach, Japan, to Wenatchee, Washington in 41 hours in a Bellanca Skyrocket.

• 1931 – Brazil reestablishes Brazilian Navy control over naval aviation, creating a naval aviation corps which takes over the control of naval aircraft from the general staff.

• 1925 – (3 or 30) The Royal Navy cruiser Vindictive launches a Fairey IIID floatplane by catapult. It is the first catapult launch of a standard British naval aircraft from a ship at sea.

• 1910 – The first mid-air collision takes place near Milan. Both pilots, Bertram Dickson and Rene Thomas, survive, but Bertram is badly injured.

• 1908 – George P. Dicken of the New York Herald becomes the first newspaper reporter to fly in an airplane when he rides as a passenger with Wilbur Wright at Camp d’Auvours.

• 1901 – Wilhelm Kress trials his Drachenflieger twin-hulled tandem triplane seaplane, the first powered marine aircraft, in Austria-Hungary. It begins to become airborne when Kress slows and tries to turn to avoid an obstruction, capsizing the aircraft.

• 1900 – Probably on this date, Wilbur Wright makes the Wright brothers’ first glider flight at Kitty Hawk. During their tests, they will fly the 1900 glider both as a glider and as a kite under various wind conditions.

• 1803 – 3-4 – Frenchman André-Jaques Garnerin covered a distance of 395 km from Paris to Clausen with his Montgolfière.

• 1785 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard makes the first manned balloon ascent in Germany.

October 4

• 2008 –Two American UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters collide while trying to land in Baghdad. An Iraqi soldier was killed, while two Iraqis and three Americans were injured.[1][2][3] Incident was due to mechanical failure.[4]

• 2007 – Africa One Antonov An-26 crash: An Antonov An-26 (9Q-COS) from Africa One / El Sam Airlift and charted by Malift Air crashes shortly after taking off from the Kinshasa-N’Djili Airport, Congo. The airplane bound for Tshikapam crashed on the outskirt of Kinshasa killing 21 on board (1 crew survived) and at least 28 on the ground. This accident forced the Congolese minister of transportation to resign.

• 2004 – Retired: SpaceShipOne

• 2004 – Gordon Cooper, one of the original astronauts in Project Mercury, dies. (b. 1927).

• 2001 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812, a Tupolev Tu-154, is suspected to be shot down by a Ukrainian missile over the Black Sea. All 66 passengers and 12 crew members are killed.

• 1992 – El Al Flight 1862, a Boeing 747, freighter, crashes into high-rise apartment buildings in Amsterdam after two of its engines detach from the wing. Forty-three people, including the plane's crew of 3, are killed. The incident became known as the Bijlmerramp (Bijlmer disaster).

• 1984 – 61 year old Elaine Yadwin lands a Piper Cherokee Warrior II safely in Florida after her husband, the plane's pilot, dies during the flight.

• 1977 – First production prototype FMA IA 58 Pucará, AX-03, of the Fuerza Aérea Argentina, crashes during preparations for the 50th Anniversary of the Fabrica Militar de Aviones at Córdoba, due to pilot error.

• 1975 – A Cessna 310Q airplane crashes over Wilmington, North Carolina, killing the pilot and severely injuring several pro wrestlers affiliated with the NWA’s Mid-Atlantic promotion. One of the survivors is the legendary Ric Flair.

• 1968 – First flight of the Tupolev Tu-154

• 1960 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Super Electra, crashes on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport into Winthrop Bay, after multiple bird strikes; 62 of 72 aboard die.

• 1958 – BOAC de Havilland Comet 4 G-APDB makes first the commercial transatlantic crossing by a jet airliner, from London Heathrow Airport to New York International Airport, Anderson Field via Gander.

• 1957 – Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite is launched into orbit

• 1957 – The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow rolls out from the Malton plant in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

• 1946 – The B-29 Pacusan Dreamboat sets a world nonstop, unrefueled distance record of 9,500 miles on a flight from Honolulu to Cairo, Egypt.

• 1943 – During Operation Leader, aircraft from the American aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) raid German shipping along the coast of Norway, sinking six steamers and damaging four others, including a transport on which about 200 German troops are killed.

• 1933 – 4-11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith sets a new solo flight record between England and Australia of 7 days 4 hours. He flies a Percival Gull.

• 1924 – First flight of the Curtiss XPW-8 A, a predecessor of the XPW-8 B, prototype in turn of the Curtiss P-1 Hawk

• 1919 – A new altitude world record of 9,622 m (31,569 feet) is set by American pilot Rudolph Schroeder, flying a Packard-Le Peré LUSAC-11.

• 1909 – More than a million New Yorkers watch as Wilbur Wright makes a flight along the Hudson River.

• 1784 – James Sadler (balloonist) becomes the first British aeronaut when he makes a flight in a Montgolfier-type balloon of a 170-foot circumference.

October 5

• 1991 – An Indonesian military transport crashes after takeoff from Jakarta killing 137.

• 1991 – Vladimir A. Yakimov attempts a vertical landing on the stern flight deck of the Soviet aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov (ex-Baku) in Yakovlev Yak-141 (Yak-41M), 48-3, callsign "77", but during heavy touchdown the undercarriage ruptures a fuel tank, causing a serious fire. About 25 seconds later, Yakimov ejected successfully, and was rescued from the sea. The aircraft was later repaired and placed on display at the Yakovlev OKB Museum.

• 1984 – Launch: Space Shuttle Challenger STS-41-G at 11:03:00 UTC. Mission highlights: Earth Radiation Budget Satellite deployment; First flight of two women in space Ride and Sullivan; First spacewalk by US woman, Kathryn Sullivan; First Canadian in space Marc Garneau.

• 1980 – Lockheed U-2R, 68-10340, Article 062, last of twelve R-model airframes in initial order, allocated N820X, first flown 26 November 1968, delivered to 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing 19 December 1968. To 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing 1976. Crashes in Korea this date, pilot Capt. Cleve Wallace surviving.

• 1967 – First flight of the Shin Meiwa US-1A

• 1967 – NASA astronaut Clifton Williams, U.S. Marine Corps, suffers control failure in Northrop T-38A-65-NO Talon, 66-8354, N922NA, he was flying while en route from Cape Canaveral, Florida to Mobile, Alabama to see his father who was dying of cancer. Jet went into an uncontrollable aileron roll, Williams ejected but he was traveling too fast and was at too low an altitude, comes down near Tallahassee, Florida. Williams served on the backup crew for Gemini X and had been assigned to the back-up crew for what would be the Apollo 9 mission. This crew placement would have most likely led to an assignment as Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 12. The Apollo 12 mission patch has four stars on it – one each for the three astronauts who flew the mission, and one for Williams.

• 1966 – Ryan XV-5A Vertifan, 62-4506, crashes at Edwards AFB, California, killing Air Force test pilot Maj. David Tittle. During hover, the aircraft began uncontrolled roll to left, pilot ejected at 50 feet (15.24 m), but chute failed to deploy.

• 1964 – RCAF provided air transportation and honour guards during the visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to Canada.

• 1951 – First flight of the Convair CV-340

• 1945 – National Airlines Flight 16, a Lockheed L-18 Lodestar, overshoots the runway at Lakeland, Florida, killing 2 of 15 on board.

• 1944 – Oberstleutnant Helmut Lent, night fighter ace (110 victories), and the first of only two night fighters to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten), crashes in a Junkers Ju 88 on a routine transit flight from Stade to Nordborchen, 5 kilometres (3 mi) south of Paderborn. On the landing approach one of the engines cuts out and the plane collides with power lines. All four members of the crew are mortally injured. Three men die shortly after the crash and Lent succumbs to his injuries two days later on 7 October 1944. Lent is posthumously promoted to Oberst.

• 1944 – The Germans scuttle the incomplete Italian aircraft carrier Sparviero to block access to the harbor at Genoa.

• 1944 – Five Pilots from the No.401 Squadron, RCAF, destroyed a German Me-262, becoming the first jet-propelled aircraft shot down by the Royal Air Force or the Royal Canadian Air Force.

• 1943 – (5-6) The Fast Carrier Task Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, strikes Wake Island with the largest force of American fast carriers – Three fleet carriers and three light carriers – Ever organized at the time. Their aircraft make six strikes totalling 738 sorties, destroying 22 of the 34 Japanese aircraft on the island in exchange for the loss of 12 American aircraft lost in combat and 14 to other causes. For the first time, a U.S. Navy submarine is assigned to support the raid by performing “lifeguard” duties for aviators forced down at sea during the strike; USS Skate (SS-305) rescues four fliers. Submarine “lifeguarding” will become a standard feature of American carrier raids beyond the range of Allied search-and-rescue aircraft.

• 1938 – Blohm & Voss BV 141 V3 asymmetric reconnaissance design, WNr 141-00-0359, D-OLGA, plagued with hydraulic problems, makes forced landing in ploughed field with mainwheel undercarriage legs only partly extended, suffers extensive damage to starboard wing.

• 1935 – Italian aircraft conduct a destructive and bloody bombing of Adowa, Ethiopia, after Ethiopian forces had withdrawn from it. The village had been the site of a disastrous defeat of Italian troops by Ethiopian forces in the Battle of Adowa in 1896.

• 1930 – British rigid airship R101, G-FAAW, completed in 1929 as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. After initial flights and two enlargements to the lifting volume, it crashed this date, in Beauvais, France, during its maiden overseas voyage, killing 48. Amongst airship accidents of the 1930s, the loss of life surpassed the LZ 129 Hindenburg, disaster of 1937, and was second only to that of the USS Akron ZRS-4, crash of 1933. The demise of R101 effectively ended British employment of rigid airships; the girders of the comparatively successful R100 were destroyed by steamroller, and sold for scrap.

• 1929 – The Boeing Model 40 B-4 makes its first flight. It is the first plane in the Model 40 series to use the two-way radio, designed by Thorpe Hiscock, William Boeing’s brother-in-law.

• 1922 – Lillian Gatlin became the first woman passenger to make a transcontinental flight in a Post Office DH-4, from San Francisco, California to Mineola, New York. The flight made stops in Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Rock Springs, Wyoming; Cheyenne, Wyoming; North Platte, Nebraska; Omaha, Nebraska; Iowa City, Iowa; Chicago, Illinois; and Cleveland, Ohio, and took a total flying time of 27 hours, 11 min to cover 2,680 miles.

• 1918 – French famous pilot Lt Roland Garros is shot down and killed in combat.

• 1914 – First aerial combat kill in history recorded when a Voisin pusher of Escadrille VB24, French Air Service, flown by Sgt. Joseph Frantz and Cpl. Quénault, downed a German two-seater Aviatik B.II, flown by Feldwebel Willhelm Schlichting with Oberleutnant Fritz von Zangen as observer, over Jonchery, Reims, using what is believed to have been a [[Hotchkiss machine gun].

• 1908 – The Zeppelin-airship LZ IV destroyed by fire at Echterdingen.

• 1907 – British Army Dirigible No 1, Nulli Secundus, the UK‘s first powered airship, flies from the School of Ballooning, Farnborough, Hampshire, to London in 3 hours 25 min.

• 1905 – Wilbur Wright makes a flight of 24.2 miles (38.9 km) in Flyer III (right). The flight lasts for almost 39:23 min at Huffman Prairie in Ohio.

• 1751 – Italian Andrea Grimaldi, exhibits a flying carriage – The machine, which remains untested, has a complex structure and a wingspan of 22 feet.

October 6

• 2010 – Tajik National Guard Helicopter crash was an accident that occurred when a Mi-8 military helicopter from the Tajik National Guard crashed in the Rasht Valley close to Ezgand and Tavildara. The helicopter got caught in power lines and crashed while attempting to land. It caught fire; there were no survivors.

• 2008 – Deceased: Richard Heyser, 81, American U-2 pilot during the Cuban missile crisis.

• 2005 – A small aircraft carrying cargo for FedEx, including six vials of research viruses, crashes in downtown Winnipeg. The female pilot, the only occupant, is killed but there are no injuries on the ground.

• 1993 – Larry Walters, American “lawn chair” pilot dies. (b. 1949) He took flight on July 2, 1982 in a homemade aircraft constructed out of a patio chair and 45 helium-filled weather balloons. He reached an altitude of 16,000 feet (3 miles) and floated from San Pedro, California into federal airspace near Long Beah airport.

• 1990 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-41 at 11:47:15 UTC. Mission highlights: Ulysses/IUS solar probe deployment.

• 1984 – First flight of the FMA IA 63 Pampa

• 1966 – First flight of the Bell OH-58 Kiowa (OH-58A)

• 1981 – NLM CityHopper Flight 431, a Fokker F28 Fellowship, is destroyed in flight by a tornado near Rotterdam, killing all 17 people on board.

• 1977 – The first prototype of the Mikoyan MiG-29, designated 9-01, makes its maiden flight.

• 1976 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 455, a Douglas DC-8, is bombed by anti-Castro militants and crashes near Bridgetown, Barbados, killing all 73 people on board.

• 1973 – Egypt and Syria launch air strikes on Israel, starting the Yom Kippur War. The conflict lasts 18 days.

• 1962 – The U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy suffer their first helicopter fatalities in Vietnam when a Marine Corps UH-34 Seahorse crashes 15 miles (24 km) from Tam Ky, South Vietnam, killing five Marines and two Navy personnel.

• 1956 – A USAF Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star overruns runway while landing at Mitchel AFB, Long Island, New York, runs through perimeter fence, flips over, ending up on the Hempstead Turnpike. Pilot Maj. Daniel Kramer killed, three in an automobile are injured.

• 1955 – United Airlines Flight 409, a Douglas DC-4, crashes into Medicine Bow Peak near Centennial, Wyoming, killing all 66 on board.

• 1955 – First flight of the Convair CV-440 Metropolitan

• 1955 – McDonnell company test pilot George Shirley Mills bails out of McDonnell F3H-2N Demon over Carrollton, Illinois near St. Louis, Missouri after what appears to be a massive systems failure, including the J40 engine. Instead of crashing, fighter circles over two states for more than an hour sans canopy, ejection seat and pilot. It eventually impacts in cornfield near Monticello, Iowa, 250 miles (400 km) from ejection.

• 1954 – First flight of the Fairey FD.2.

• 1948 – United States Air Force Boeing B-29-100-BW Superfortress, 45-21866, of the 3150th Electronics Squadron, crashed in Waycross, Georgia shortly after take off from Robins Air Force Base due to an engine fire. Of the 13 men aboard 9 are killed including 3 RCA engineers. Four parachuted to safety.

• 1944 – No. 6 (RCAF) Group sent 293 bombers to attack Dortmund, Germany. This was the largest force sent out by the Group.

• 1944 – Cancelled: Fisher P-75 Eagle.

• 1944 – Junkers Ju 90, G6+AY, blows two tires and crashes on landing at Tatoi Airport, Greece, after flight from Iraklion, Crete. Repairs prove impossible and the aircraft is set on fire by the crew to prevent capture by the British, who were about to occupy Greece.

• 1939 – First flight of the Curtiss SO3C Seamew

• 1927 – Western Canada Airways commenced contract airmail service between Lac du Bonnet, Wadhope and Bisset, Manitoba.

• 1923 – Curtiss R2Cs win first and second place in the Pulitzer air race, the winning aircraft setting a new airspeed record of 243.6 mph (392 km/h).

• 1922 – Lt John A. Macready and Lt Oakley G. Kelly set a flight endurance record of 35 hours 18 min in a Fokker T-2.

• 1912 – At Oppama, Japan, Lieutenant Yōzō Kaneko makes the Imperial Japanese Navy's first flight, piloting a Farman seaplane for 15 min and reaching an altitude of 30 m (100 feet).

• 1908 – Wilbur Wright and a French writer make the first passenger flight of over one hour.

October 7

• 2012 – FlyMontserrat Flight 107, the Britten-Norman Islander VP-NOM, crashes shortly after takeoff from V. C. Bird International Airport on Antigua, killing three of the four people on board and injuring the lone survivor. It is the deadliest air accident in the history of Antigua and Barbuda.

• 2009 – A Libyan Air Force Mikoyan MiG-23 Flogger crashes while taking part during an airshow for the Third Libyan Aviation Exhibition, LAVEX 2009 held at Mitiga International Airport, Tripoli, Libya. The aircraft travelling at low-level hit a one-storey house in the suburb of Souq Al-Jumaa in Tripoli killing the 2 crew and injuring two civilians.

• 2008 – Qantas Flight 72 an Airbus A330-300 makes an emergency landing in Exmouth, Australia following a rapid descent that leaves over 70 people injured, 14 of them seriously.

• 2003 – OH-58D Kiowa (92-0578) crashes inside Iraq, pilots survive.[1]

• 2002 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-112 at 19:45:51 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 9A: S1 truss.

• 1995 – First flight of the Mitsubishi F-2

• 1995 – First flight of the Learjet 45

• 1989 – First flight of the Enstrom 480

• 1982 – BA-55 a Belgian Air Force Dassault Mirage 5BA crashed into a quarry at Bierset, pilot killed.

• 1963 – First flight of the Learjet 23 prototype, the very first Learjet built.

• 1961 – 1961 Derby Aviation crash occurred in the Canigou mountainside en-route London – Perpignan, killing all 34 aboard.

• 1944 – The RCAF’s No. 6 Group struck at Dortmund; they lost only two out of a record 293 bombers.

• 1944 – Luftwaffe night fighter ace Oberstleutnant Helmut Lent is fatally injured when his Junkers Ju 88G-6 night fighter crashes during a landing approach after a routine transit flight. He dies two days later, with his score at 110 kills, 103 of them at night.

• 1935 – United Airlines Trip 4, a Boeing 247D, crashes near Silver Crown, Wyoming due to pilot error; all 12 on board die.

• 1934 – First flight of the First prototype Tupolev ANT-40RT which becomes Tupolev SB

• 1932 – First flight of the Stipa-Caproni, a prototype aircraft employing Luigi Stipa’s “intubed propeller” concept, a forerunner of jet propulsion.

• 1926 – The Boeing FB-5 (production version) makes its first flight.

• 1919 – KLM is formed.

• 1909 – Glenn Curtiss becomes the first American to hold an FAI airplane certificate.

• 1908 – Edith Ogilby Berg became the first American woman airplane passenger when she flew with Wilbur Wright.

• 1903 – Samuel Pierpont Langley conducts the first tests of his full-sized man-carrying version of his earlier model aerodromes. The pilot, Charles Manly, nearly drowns when the machine slides off its launch apparatus atop a houseboat and falls into the Potomac River.

• 1849 – Frenchman Francisque Arban flies over the Alps in a free balloon (Marseille-Subini near Turin).

October 8

• 2008 – Yeti Airlines Flight 103 De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter crashes 60 nmi (110 km) from Mt Everest, Nepal, killing 18 of 19 people on board.

• 2001 – In the Linate Airport disaster, SAS Flight 686, a MD-87, crashes into a Cessna business jet on takeoff from Milan, Italy. The MD-87 then swerves into a baggage handling building and catches fire. All 110 people on board Flight 686 die as well as all four in the Cessna. Four people on the ground are also killed.

• 1998 – Oslo Airport, Gardermoen replaces Oslo Airport, Fornebu as Oslo's main airport.

• 1996 – Three B-2 Spirits destroy 16 targets with 16 smart bombs at the Nellis AFB range.

• 1979 – Swissair Flight 316 crashes after overrunning the runway at Athens-Ellinikon International Airport, killing 14 of the 154 passengers and crew on board.

• 1973 – First flight of the RFB Fanliner D-EJFL

• 1972 – Entered Service: Grumman F-14A Tomcat, the United States Navy’s first carrier-based variable-geometry wing aircraft, with U. S. Navy Fighter Squadron 124 (VF-124)

• 1967 – American aircraft strike Cat Bi airfield near Haiphong in North Vietnam for the first time.

• 1967 – The first helicopter gunship designed as such to see combat, the U.S. Army’s AH-1G Cobra, flies its first combat mission when two AH-1 Gs operating over South Vietnam escort U. S. Army transport helicopters, then support South Vietnamese troops by destroying four enemy fortifications and sinking 14 sampans.

• 1966 – Lockheed U-2C, 56-6690, of the 349th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, 100th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, develops technical problems while on high-altitude reconnaissance flight over North Vietnam, attempts to recover to base but crashes near Bien Hoa, South Vietnam. Pilot Maj. Leo J. Stewart ejects and survives. This is the only U.S. Air Force U-2 loss in theatre during the War in Southeast Asia.

• 1965 – The 20th Helicopter Squadron becomes the first U. S. Air Force cargo helicopter unit to deploy to South Vietnam, operating CH-3 C helicopters. It supports Air Force Special Operations “Pony Express” covert operations, primarily in Laos.

• 1959 – A USAF Boeing B-47E-65-BW Stratojet, 51-5248, of the 307th Bomb Wing at Lincoln AFB, Nebraska, crashes during RATO take-off, killing instructor pilot Maj. Paul R. Ecelbarger, aircraft commander 1st Lt. Joseph R. Morrisey, and navigators Capt. Lucian W. Nowlin and Capt. Theodore Tallmadge.

• 1952 – Twelve F2 H Banshee fighters of U. S. Navy Fighter Squadron 11 (VF-11) embarked aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kearsarge (CVA-33) escort U. S. Air Force B-29 Superfortress bombers in a raid on the rail and supply center at Kowon, Korea. Minutes later, 89 aircraft from USS Essex (CVA-9), USS Princeton (CVA-37), and Kearsarge follow up with a bomb and rocket attack on Kowon.

• 1944 – Focke-Wulf Fw 190 V18/U1, Werke Nummer 0040, originally Fw 190A-0, (utilized by Daimler-Benz for engine tests with Hirth exhaust turbine), is rebuilt a second time to Fw 190C standard as Fw 190 V18/U2 with 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Daimler-Benz DB 603A engine replaced by 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Jumo 213E. Aircraft, prototype for Ta 152H-1, crashes this date on test flight out of Langenhagen after just a few days in its new configuration.

• 1943 – First (of two) Northrop XP-56 tailless flying wing fighters, 42-1786, suffers blown left main tire during ~130 mph (210 km/h) taxi across Muroc Dry Lake, Muroc Air Base, California. Aircraft tumbles, goes airborne, throws pilot John Myers clear before crashing inverted, airframe destroyed. Pilot, wearing a polo helmet for protection, suffers only minor injuries.

• 1943 – F/L AH Russell and crew in a Short Sunderland of No. 423 Squadron sank the German submarine U-610 in the North Atlantic.

• 1940 – The XF4U-1 Corsair prototype established a speed record of 405 mph, cracking the 400 mph “barrier” for the first time.

• 1940 – Josef František, the Czech ace (17 victories) – The most efficient allied pilot of the Battle of Britain, died in an air crash.

• 1939 – First RAF victory of World War II when a Lockheed Hudson shoots down a Dornier Do 18 over Jutland.

• 1934 – Inter-Island Airways makes the first inter-island air mail flight in the Hawaiian Islands under a United States Post Office contract.

• 1932 – The Indian Air Force is established.

• 1929 – Two cartoon comedies shown on a Transcontinental Air Transport Ford Trimotor were the first movies shown in an aircraft.

• 1923 – First British motor glider competition is flown, at Lympne, Kent from the 8th to 13th of October.

• 1919 – During the first (and only) transcontinental reliability and endurance test, an air race between Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York and the Presidio of San Francisco, California, Brig. Gen. Lionel Charlton, Royal Air Force, the British Air Attaché, hits a fence during a forced landing near Ithaca, New York in his Bristol F.2 Fighter, 2nd Lt. George C. McDonald hits a ditch when engine trouble in his unspecified type (probably a de Havilland) forces him down at Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and 1st Lt. D. B. Gish's DH-4 catches fire over Livingston County in western New York state, and he makes an emergency landing. Neither he, nor his passenger, Capt. Paul de la Vergne of the French air service and French Air Attaché, are injured, but the plane is written-off. A forced landing kills Sgt. W. H. Nevitt when the Liberty L-12 engine of the DH-4B piloted by Col. Gerald C. Brant fails after an oil line breaks. Plane plunges to the ground near Deposit, New York when power is lost on landing, killing Nevitt and injuring Brant. Of entrants flying from the Presidio to New York, one DH-4B crashes attempting to land at Salt Lake City, Utah, killing pilot Maj. Dana H. Crissy, commander of Mather Field, California, and his mechanic, SFC Virgil Thomas. The flying field at the Presidio is subsequently named Crissy Field.

• 1914 – Wing Cdr Charles Samson, RNAS plans the first strategic air raid on Germany. Two Sopwith Tabloids set out to attack the Zeppelin sheds at Düsseldorf. One of the aircraft attacks the Cologne railway station, but the other, piloted by Flt Lt Reggie Marix finds his target and destroys a shed holding the Z.IX.

• 1890 – Eddie Rickenbacker, American fighter ace in World War I is born in Columbus, Ohio.

• 1883 – French brothers Albert and Gaston Tissandier make the first flight with an airship powered by electricity.

October 9

• 2012 – First flight of the Cessna Citation M2

• 2009 – The Centaur module of NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is purposely smashed into the surface of the Moon, creating a plume of dust which is collected by another spacecraft to test for the presence of water. Five weeks later, test results confirm the existence of water vapor on the Moon.

• 2009 – A Fuerza Aérea Uruguaya EADS CASA C-212-200 Aviocar (FAU-531/UN-146) a twin-engined turboprop transport aircraft, on a reconnaissance flight crashes near Fonds-Verrettes, Ouest Department, Haiti. The aircraft taking part in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti crashed into a mountainside near the remote village of Pays-Pourri killing the 11 crew.

• 2006 – The A/MH-6X manned/unmanned military light-turbine helicopter makes its first flight. It combines technologies of the A/MH-6 M Mission Enhanced Little Bird with Unmanned Little Bird Demonstrator, a modified MD 530 F civil helicopter.

• 1999 – Completing a career during which she set scores of speed and altitude records, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird makes its final flight.

• 1991 – On Wednesday, four members of an Sikorsky SH-3H Sea King crew operating from the Norfolk, Virginia-based USS America were presumed lost after the aircraft crashed during a training mission near Bermuda, the Navy said Friday. The helicopter was assigned to the Anti-Submarine Squadron 11 at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, The crewmen were identified as: Lt. Richard D. Calderon, 26, of Jacksonville, Florida; Lt. Cmdr. Karl J. Wiegand, 35, of Orange Park, Florida; aviation anti-submarine warfare operator Karl J. Wicklund, 23, of Clear Lake, Minnesota; and aviation anti-submarine warfare operator Vincent W. Bostwick, 20, of Orange Park, Florida.

• 1986 – First flight of the AgustaWestland AW101.

• 1969 – A USAF Boeing B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress, 57-0172, of the 329th Bomb Squadron, crashed about 1,000 feet beyond end of runway while doing touch-and-goes at Castle AFB, California. All six crew died in the 2345 hrs. accident as the Stratofortress exploded on impact.

• 1967 – Second (of five) Ling-Temco-Vought XC-142As, 62-5922, suffers major landing gear and fuselage damage during STOL landing at Edwards AFB, California, following a 28-minute functional check flight after incorporation of modified control system components. Crew uninjured. This was the 488th test flight of the XC-142 program, and it turns out to be the last one before the program is cancelled. Airframe not repaired.

• 1957 – Boeing DB-47B-35-BW Stratojet, 51-2177A, of the 447th Bomb Squadron, 321st Bomb Wing, taking part in a practice demonstration at Pinecastle Air Force Base suffers wing-failure during the annual Strategic Air Command Bombing Navigation and Reconnaissance Competition. The aircraft comes down north of downtown Orlando, killing pilot Colonel Michael N.W. McCoy, commander of the 321st Bombardment Wing, Group Captain John Woodroffe of the Royal Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Joyce, and Major Vernon Stuff. Pinecastle AFB is re-named McCoy Air Force Base in McCoy's honour on 7 May 1958. Details of the accident remained classified for five decades, presumably because they would reveal flaws in the aircraft, but an FOIA request resulted in the release that showed that the investigation laid the blame on pilot McCoy.

• 1949 – Douglas C-47A-90-DL Skytrain, 43-16062, c/n 20528, of the 6th Rescue Squadron, Air Rescue Service, MATS, based at Goose Bay, Labrador, fails to gain sufficient airspeed on takeoff from primitive Isachsen airstrip, abandoned Isachsen weather station, Ellef Ringnes Island, Northwest Territory, Canada, at 1800 hrs. Zulu, lifting off twice before landing gear/skis contacted rising terrain and collapsed. Cause was icing and overload conditions. Four crew and six passengers suffer only minor injuries. Airframe abandoned in place. It is still there.

• 1938 – Nationalist aircraft sink the Republican submarine C-6 at Barcelona, Spain.

• 1933 – Prototype Martin XB-10, 33-157, assigned to the 59th Service Squadron, Langley Field, Virginia, is lost when landing gear will not extend during routine flight, Lt. E.A. Hilary parachutes from bomber, which is destroyed with only 132 flight hours.

• 1931 – U.S. Navy Keystone PK-1 flying boat, BuNo A-8516, is forced down in heavy seas and sinks.

• 1930 – Erroll Boyd launches his flight across the Atlantic in the Maple Leaf. En route, he encounters rough weather; his plane suffers an electrical failure and a clogged fuel line. He becomes the first Canadian to fly the Atlantic when he lands the next day on the British island of Tresco.

• 1924 – In the United Kingdom, the Royal Auxiliary Air Force is established.

• 1919 – Continuing the cross-country contest, a DH-4B hits the side of a mountain W of Cheyenne, Wyoming, killing 1st Lt. Edwin V. Vales and badly injuring 2nd Lt. William C. Goldsborough. Lt. A. M. Roberts and his observer survive a close call when, in an effort to make up for lost time, Roberts chooses the direct route, over Lake Erie, between Buffalo and Cleveland. His engine fails, and he has to ditch in the lake. Luckily, a passing freighter sees the crash and picks up the two men.

• 1906 – Zeppelin LZ 3 flies for the first time.

• 1900 – French aeronaut Count Henri de La Vaulx sets a world record for non-stop long-distance balloon flight. He flies for over 35 hours after taking off from Paris, France.

• 1890 – Clement Ader flew 50 m in powered, uncontrolled flight in his aeroplane "Eole".

October 10

• 2012 – As part of an arms embargo against Syria, Turkish Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons intercept Syrian Air Flight RB442, an Airbus A320 suspected of carrying Russian-made weapons, in Turkish airspace during its flight from Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow to Damascus International Airport in Damascus, Syria, and force it to land at Esenboğa International Airport outside Ankara, Turkey.[1][2] Inspectors confiscate military communications equipment and items "thought to be missile parts" found aboard the plane.[3]

• 2011 – Flying a modified Yakovlev Yak-3U powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-2000 engine, William Whiteside sets an official international speed record for piston-engined aircraft in the under-3,000 kg (6,615-pound) category, reaching 655 km/hr (407 mph) over a 3-km (1.863-mile) course at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in the United States, greatly exceeding the previous record of 491 km/hr (305 mph) set in 2002 by Jim Wright.[4]

• 2011 – Tripoli International Airport in Tripoli, Libya, officially reopens. It had been closed since 19 March, when international forces had begun to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya imposed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973.[5]

• 2006 – Atlantic Airways Flight 670, a BAe 146, slides off the runway at Stord, Norway, killing four of the 16 people on board.

• 1998 – The 1998 Lignes Aériennes Congolaises crash occurs when rebels using a Strela 2 missile shoot down the Boeing 727, which crashes near Kindu, Democratic Republic of Congo, killing all 41 on board.

• 1997 – Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 2553, a Douglas DC-9-32, crashes near Fray Bentos, Uruguay traveling from Posadas to Buenos Aires, resulting in the death of all 74 occupants – 5 crew members and 69 passengers.

• 1990 – First flight of the Learjet 60

• 1984 – UThe first of three Northrop F-20 Tigersharks, 82-0062, c/n GG1001, N4416T, during a world sales tour, crashes at Suwon Air Base, South Korea, killing Northrop chief test pilot Darrell Cornell. During the last manoeuvre of the final demonstration flight at Suwon, the aircraft stalled at the top of an erratic vertical climb and dove into the ground from 1,800 feet. High-G pilot incapacitation was suspected as the cause, as the investigation found no evidence of airframe failure.

• 1976 – First flight of the Embraer EMB 121 Xingu

• 1972 – Competitive fly-off between the Northrop YA-9 and Fairchild YA-10 begins, continuing until December 9.

• 1972 – Douglas A-3B Skywarrior, BuNo 138968, of VAQ-33, crashes 1.6 statute miles NW of Holland, Virginia on old Highway 58 in Nansemond (Suffolk, Virginia), off Glen Haven Drive. LTJG David H. Grant, 25, of Westbury, New York, pilot; LTJG Ronald B. Ritchie, 25, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, navigator; and LTJG Jeffery R. Haushalter, 25, of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, electronic-weapons officer, are KWF.

• 1968 – Lockheed SR-71A, 61-7977, Article 2028, lost at end of runway, Beale Air Force Base, California after tire explosion and runway abort. Pilot Maj. Gabriel A. Kardong rode airframe to a standstill. RSO James A. Kogler ejected safely. Both survived.

• 1962 – Vickers Viscount CF-THA was involved in a ground collision with CF-101 Voodoo 17452 of the Royal Canadian Air Force at RCAF Station Bagotville. The Voodoo had been given clearance to take-off before the Viscount had cleared the runway. It collided with the tail of the Viscount, killing a flight attendant and a passenger. The crew of the Voodoo ejected as the aircraft had been set on fire as a result of the collision. The Viscount was substantially damaged but it was repaired and returned to service.

• 1958 – A C-123 B Provider serving as a maintenance support aircraft for the United States Air Force Thunderbirds air demonstration team flies into a flock of birds and crashes near Payette, Idaho, killing the entire flight crew of five and all 14 maintenance personnel on board. It remains the worst accident in Thunderbirds history.

• 1956 – A United States Navy Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster, BuNo 131588, c/n 43691/321, of VR-6, MATS, is lost at sea about 150 miles (240 km) north of the Azores. 59 died, 50 U.S. Air Force personnel from Lincoln AFB, and nine U.S. Navy personnel. Another source cites 11 October: as crash date.

• 1956 – First flight of the Lockheed L-1649 Starliner

• 1955 – Helicopters from USS Saipan play a key role in rescuing people stranded by flooding in Tampico, Mexico

• 1953 – An RAF English Electric Canberra wins the Christchurch Centenary air race, flying 11,792 miles (18,976 km) from England to New Zealand in 23 hours 50 min

• 1950 – First flight of the Boulton Paul P.111 VT935

• 1947 Chuck Yeager's seventh powered flight. Chuck had the X-1 at .94 Mach when his controls suddenly ceased to function. Shock waves on the plane’s control surfaces made operation impossible. Always cool-headed in such situations, Chuck turned off the plane’s rockets to slow down and jettisoned the remaining fuel. He glided back in to the lakebed and explained to Ridley what had happened. Engineers had predicted that as the plane reached the speed of sound, its nose would pitch up or down. At .94 Mach, however, Chuck had lost the ability to operate the plane’s elevator. Without it, he could not correct for whatever pitch change might occur at Mach 1. It was Jack Ridley who came up with the solution. http://www.chuckyeager.com/1945-1947-mach-buster

• 1944 – Aircraft from the 17 aircraft carriers of U. S. Navy Task Force 38 fly 1,396 sorties against targets on Okinawa and in the Ryukyu Islands, claiming 111 Japanese aircraft destroyed and sinking a submarine tender, 12 torpedo boats, two midget submarines, four cargo ships, and various smaller ships, in exchange for the loss of 21 U. S. aircraft, 5 pilots, and four aircrewmen. It is the closest Allied operation to Japan since the April 1942 Doolittle Raid.

• 1944 – First Fisher P-75A-GC Eagle, 44-44549, crashes on flight test out of Eglin Field, Florida, when propellers apparently run out of oil, pilot Maj. Harold Bolster attempts dead-stick landing but crashes short on approach, dies.

• 1933 – Fokker Y1O-27, 31-602, '3', of 30th Bombardment Squadron, Rockwell Field, California, en route from Burbank, California to Crissy Field, California, lands at Crissy with landing gear retracted. Both light and buzzer in cockpit that are supposed to activate when the throttles are retarded fail to function. Only serious damage is to the propellers but airframe is surveyed and dropped from inventory with 115 hours, 15 minutes flying time. Pilot 2nd Lt. Theodore B. Anderson uninjured.

• 1933 – The United Airlines crash near Chesterton: a Boeing 247 is destroyed by a bomb over Chesterton, Indiana in the first proven case of air sabotage on a commercial aircraft; all seven on board are killed.

• 1930 – First flight of the Short S.15 K. F.1, prototype of the Kawanishi H3K

• 1928 – Flying an Engineering Division XCO-5 observation aircraft, St. Clair “Bill” Streett (pilot) and Albert William Stevens (passenger) set an unofficial altitude record for an aircraft carrying a passenger of 11,538 m (37,854 feet). Temperatures of −61 C (–71 F) freeze the controls, preventing Streett from losing altitude or turning off the engine; he waits 20 min for the engine to run out of gasoline (petrol), then glides to a deadstick landing.

• 1923 – Christened: USS Shenandoah (ZR-1)

• 1919 – On third day of transcontinental contest, an east-bound DH-4B, piloted by Maj. Albert Sneed, almost out of gas, makes fast landing at Buffalo, New York. Passenger Sgt. Worth C. McClure undoes his seatbelt and slides onto the rear fuselage to weight down the tail for a quicker stop. Plane bounces on landing, smashes nose-first into the ground, and McClure is thrown off and killed.

• 1907 – Robert Esnault-Pelterie made the first airplane flight with a control stick; he used a single, broom handle-like lever.

• 1898 – Augustus Herring pilots a powered biplane based on Octave Chanute’s glider design.

October 11

• 2012 – The Syrian Revolution General Commission claims that its forces have destroyed 61 Syrian government helicopters and planes, mostly while on the ground during rebel raids, and that the heaviest Syrian government aircraft losses occurred in August.[1]

• 2011 – In the same modified Yak-3U, William Whiteside sets an unofficial speed record for piston-engined aircraft in the under-3,000 kg (6,615-pound) category of 670 km/hr (416 mph) over the same 3-km (1.863-mile) course at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

• 2007 – Renowned WWII fighter pilot “Tex” Hill dies (b. 1916). Hill joined the Flying Tigers, an American volunteer group based in China during World War II. He shot down 18 1/4 enemy aircraft during the war.

• 2006 – A Cirrus SR20 flown by New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and an instructor crashed into the Belaire Apartments in New York City.

• 2000 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-92 at 19:17:00 EDT. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 3A: Z1 truss. It was the 100th Space Shuttle Mission.

• 1999 – 1999 Air Botswana incident occurred when Chris Phatswe, a Botswana airline pilot, committed suicide by crashing a plane into the tarmac and a group of aircraft at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in Gaborone. His actions effectively crippled operations for Air Botswana.

• 1998 – A Congo Airlines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 40.

• 1991 – The crash of a Beechcraft T-34C Turbo-Mentor in Baldwin County, Alabama, kills Navy Cmdr. Duane S. Cutter, 44, from Newfield, New York, and his student, Marine 2nd Lt. Thomas J. Gaffney, 24, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, while on a routine training mission out of NAS Whiting Field, Florida, said Lt. Cmdr. Diane Hooker, a Navy spokeswoman at Whiting Field. Hooker couldn't immediately say what techniques the two were practicing when the T-34 went down.

• 1990 – First flight of the Rockwell-MBB X-31

• 1988 – KC-135 refueling tanker crashes on landing at Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan. Plane is destroyed and there are several fatalities.

• 1984 – Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform spacewalk aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.

• 1984 – After a ground controller falls alseep on duty, Aeroflot Flight 3352, a Tupolev Tu-154, strikes several maintenance vehicles and crashes while landing at Omsk Tsentralny Airport in Omsk in the Soviet Union, killing 174 of the 179 people on board and four people on the ground.

• 1983 – Air Illinois Flight 710, a Hawker Siddeley HS 748, crashes near Hillsboro Municipal Airport due to electrical problems. All 10 passengers and crew on board are killed.

• 1968 – Apollo program – NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.

• 1968 – Fifth prototype U.S. Navy Grumman F-111B, BuNo 151974, c/n A2-05, crash landed at Point Mugu, California. Scrapped. Navy abandons the F-111B program completely and both houses of Congress refuse to fund production order in May 1968.

• 1963 – The Vertol CH-113 Voyageur helicopter entered RCAF service.

• 1962 – First of 200 Canadian-built CF-104 Starfighters left for West Germany; to join strike-reconnaissance squadrons.

• 1960 – The Hon G. R. Pearkes, VC, DSO, retired as Minister of National Defence and was replaced by the Hon Douglas Harkness.

• 1957 – On takeoff shortly after 0000 hrs. from Homestead AFB, Florida, a Boeing B-47B-35-BW Stratojet, 51-2139, c/n 450192, of the 379th Bomb Wing, participating in exercise Dark Night, suffers port-rear wheel casing failure at 30 kts. The bomber's tail hits the runway and a fuel tank ruptures, crashing in an unhabited area approximately 3,800 feet from the end of the runway, four crew KWF. The aircraft burns for seven hours after the firecrew evacuates the area, ten minutes after the crash. The aircraft was carrying an unarmed nuclear weapon in the bomb bay and fuel capsule in a carrying case in the cabin. "Two low order detonations occurred during the burning." The nuclear capsule and its carrying case were recovered intact and only slightly damaged by heat. Approximately one-half of the weapon remained. All major components were damaged but were identifiable and accounted for.

• 1956 – A Vickers Valiant of No. 49 Squadron RAF drops Britain's first air-dropped atomic bomb, over Maralinga, South Australia

• 1944 – 61 carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 attack Aparri airfield on Luzon against no opposition, destroying about 15 Japanese aircraft on the ground in exchange for the loss of one U. S. plane to enemy ground fire and six to non-combat causes.

• 1938 – First flight of the Westland Whirlwind (fighter)

• 1933 – First flight of the Blackburn Perth

• 1928 – The Zeppelin LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin crosses the Atlantic in 71 hours.

• 1922 – First flight of the Navy-Wright NW (AKA Mystery Racer)

• 1919 – Handley Page Transport begins offering the first in-flight meals, on its London-Brussels service. They are sold at 3 s.

• 1918 – The Imperial German Navy’s air command proposes that merchant ships be converted into Germany’s first aircraft carriers with flight decks.

• 1910 – Theodore Roosevelt (President of the United States of America 1901 – 09) becomes the first former state leader to fly (four minutes) in an airplane when he flies with exhibition pilot Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch Field in St. Louis.

• 1907 – Robert Esnault-Pelterie makes the first airplane flight with a control stick, using a single, broom handle-like lever.

October 12

• 2012 – (12-15) The retired Space Shuttle Endeavour is towed 12 miles (19 km) through the streets of Los Angeles, California, from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center for museum display. Numerous logistical problems along the route cause it to arrive 17 hours late.

• 2011 – Introduction: Boeing 747-8 (747-8F) with Cargolux

• 2010 – A Eurocopter AS350 helicopter crashed in Antarctica, killing four people.

• 2010 – Transafrik International Flight 662, operated by Lockheed L-100 Hercules 5X-TUC crashed into a mountain 19 miles (31 km) east of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, killing all eight crew.

• 2009 – An Irish Air Corps Pilatus PC-9M flying in poor weather conditions crashes at Crumlin East near Cornamona in County Galway, Republic of Ireland killing the flying instructor and cadet pilot.

• 1997 – Singer-songwriter John Denver was killed when the Long-EZ aircraft he was piloting crashed just off the coast of California at Pacific Grove, shortly after taking off from the Monterey Peninsula Airport.

• 1988 – A Bar Harbor Airlines ATR 42 misses Air Force One by less than 1,000 feet.

• 1980 – Mesa Airlines commenced operations.

• 1976 – First flight of the Sikorsky S-72.

• 1976 – Indian Airlines Flight 171, a Sud Caravelle, crashes while attempting an emergency landing at Bombay Airport. All 95 passengers and crew were killed in the accident.

• 1971 – A RAF F-4M Phantom FGR.2, XV479, 'J', of No. 54 Squadron, on a training mission crashes into a farm house near Holstebro, Denmark, due to engine failure on take-off, killing a woman and her child. Police and rescuers who rushed to the scene could do nothing to save them from the burning house. The crew of two parachutes to safety after problems with engine reheat.

• 1967 – Cyprus Airways Flight 284, a De Havilland Comet, is destroyed by a bomb over the Mediterranean. All 66 passengers and crew perish in the crash.

• 1966 – Lockheed C-130E-LM Hercules, 63-7886, c/n 3957, of the 516th Troop Carrier Wing, Dyess AFB, Texas, flies into ground at night approximately 30 kilometers north-northwest of Aspermont, Texas. It impacts in a brushy pasture on the 6666 Ranch, 75 miles NW of Abilene near U.S. 83. Only one of the crew of six survives, Carroll Brezee, a loadmaster, who is pulled from the wreckage by a passing truck driver. He was in critical condition. The fuselage and tail section lay near the center of a burned area about 50 X 200 yards, with parts scattered along a half mile stretch. Sheriff E.W. Hollar, of Guthrie, nine miles N of the crash site, said that persons first reaching the scene found two bodies. A ground party from Dyess AFB found the other three in a search through heavy mesquite brush. Authorities said that these were the first fatalities in the 516th Troop Carrier Wing since it was formed at Dyess in December 1958.

• 1966 – Two North American F-100 Super Sabres of the USAF Thunderbirds demonstration team collide during practice for a show at Sheppard AFB, Texas, at Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, Nevada, killing two of the three pilots. The jets were performing opposing half Cuban Eights when witnesses said that the two jets scraped each other at the top of a loop. The pilot of the F-100F, Capt. Robert H. Morgan, 32, of Pendleton, South Carolina, ejected but his chute did not have time to deploy and he died when he struck the ground still strapped to his seat, while team member, Maj. Frank E. Liethen, Jr., 36, Appleton, Wisconsin, riding in the second seat, died when the Super Sabre struck the desert floor. The fighter impact left a crater almost twelve feet deep. "Liethen, executive officer of the Thunderbirds, was riding with Morgan on an orientation flight. He had been with the group since last December, but ordinarily did not take part in formation flying. However, he had been scheduled to take over soon as commander and would have flown at the head of the group's diamond formation." Capt. Robert D. Beckel, 29, of Walla Walla, Washington, was able to land his F-100D at Nellis AFB, Nevada. "The Air Force said it was a 'tribute to his flying skill' that Beckel was able to land his plane, damaged in a wing. The red, white and blue jets cost a reported $650,000." Both Liethan and Morgan leave a widow and four children. "A Thunderbird spokesman said a show Saturday in Wichita Falls, Tex., would go on despite the crash - but maybe with five planes instead of six because there was no one trained to replace Morgan."

• 1964 – Launched: Voskhod 1. This was the Soviet Union's first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits.

• 1961 – The U.S. Navy’s first McDonnell-built F4H operational squadron, VF-74, is qualified for carrier duty.

• 1960 – The first Hercules was delivered to the RCAF, they arrived in Trenton from Marietta, Georgia.

• 1954 – A U.S. Navy Lockheed P2V Neptune undergoing test cycles by the Air Force Operational Test Center at Eglin AFB suffers a structural failure on landing at Auxiliary Field Number 8 which causes the starboard engine to break loose and burn in a Tuesday morning accident. The crew of two escape injury.

• 1954 – USAF North American F-100A-1-NA Super Sabre, 52-5764, c/n 192-9, crashes at Edwards Air Force Base, California, at 1100 hrs., killing North American test-pilot Lt. George Welch, a veteran of the Japanese Navy attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. During terminal velocity dive test from 45,000 feet (14,000 m), aircraft yaws to starboard, then begins roll. Airframe breaks up under 8 G strain, pilot falls clear, chute opens, but he sustains fatal injuries, dying shortly after reaching the ground.

• 1944 – The first B-29 Superfortress lands on Saipan, beginning the Twentieth Air Force’s build-up of a strategic bombing capability in the Mariana Islands. For the first time, all of Japan proper is within range of United States Army Air Forces strategic bombers.

• 1944 – (12–14) Task Force 38 conducts three days of heavy air strikes against Formosa, targeting Japanese airfields and shipping, flying 1,374 sorties on the first day, 974 on the second, and 246 on the third. U. S. aircraft destroy over 500 Japanese aircraft, sink 24 cargo ships and small craft, and destroy many Japanese military facilities. On the third day, strikes also are flown against northern Luzon. Counterattacking Japanese torpedo bombers cripple the heavy cruiser USS Canberra (CA-70) and light cruiser USS Houston (CL-81).

• 1943 – The U. S. Army Air Forces’ Fifth Air Force conducts the largest Allied airstrike thus far in World War II in the Pacific, sending 349 aircraft to attack the Japanese airfields, shipping, and supply depots at Rabaul, New Britain, losing five aircraft. Allied airstrikes on Rabaul will continue for much of the rest of the war.

• 1942 – Famed RCAF ace, Buzz Beurling, was shot down and wounded over Malta.

• 1940 – Ilyushin TsKB-57, prototype of the Ilyushin Il-2.

• 1936 – Nationalist aircraft sink the Republican submarine B-5 off the coast of Spain near Málaga.

• 1924 – 12-15 – Transportation of the Zeppelin-Airship "LZ 126" (USS Los Angeles (ZR-3)) to USA under guidance of H. Eckener.

• 1918 – The Imperial German Navy’s Naval Airship Division flies its last combat mission.

• 1916 – Royal Naval Air Service ace Raymond Collishaw claims his first victory.

• 1907 – Augustus Gaudron crosses the North Sea in a hot air balloon named Mammouth. He flies 1,160 km (721 miles) from The Crystal Palace, London to Lake Vänern, Sweden.

October 13

• 2012 –Syria bans Turkish civilian aircraft from flying over its territory.[1]

• 2011 – Airlines PNG Flight 1600, a de Havilland Canada DHC-8, crashes near the mouth of the Gogol River, Papua New Guinea, killing 28 of 32 on board.

• 2003 – OH-58D Kiowa (93-0991) from C Troop, 1–17th Cavalry Regiment crashes inside Iraq, pilots survive.[2]

• 1996 – First flight of the Bombardier Global Express

• 1992 – Antonov An-124 Ruslan, SSSR-82002, believed destined for Aeroflot, on test flight by Antonov/Aviastar, suffers nose cargo door failure during high-speed descent (part of test program) resulting in total loss of control. Airframe comes down in forest near Kiev, killing eight of nine crew.

• 1984 – Landed: Space Shuttle Challenger STS-41-G at 16:26:33 UTC KSC. Mission highlights: Earth Radiation Budget Satellite deployment; First flight of two women in space Ride and Sullivan; First spacewalk by US woman, Kathryn Sullivan; First Canadian in space Marc Garneau.

• 1982 – A JASDF McDonnell-Douglas F-4EJ Phantom II, 47-8343, crashes into the Sea of Japan near Komatsu, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.

• 1977 – Lufthansa Flight 181, a Boeing 737, is hijacked by four Palestinian members of the PFLP, who kill the captain; subsequently, German police commandos from GSG 9 storm the aircraft, killing three of the hijackers and capturing the fourth, with no other casualties.

• 1976 – A Bolivian Boeing 707 cargo jet crashes in Santa Cruz, Bolivia killing 100 (97, mostly children, killed on the ground).

• 1973 – Aeroflot Flight 964, a Tupolev Tu-104, crashed while on approach to Domodedovo International Airport, Moscow, Soviet Union. All 122 passengers and crew on board were killed.

• 1972 – Aeroflot Flight 217, an Ilyushin Il-62, crashes on approach to Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, USSR. All 174 passengers and crew on board are killed.

• 1972 – 1972 Andes flight disaster / Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571: A Fairchild Hiller FH-227D, T-571, c/n 572, carrying a rugby union team from Montevideo to a match in Santiago, Chile, crashes in a remote region of the Andes on the Chile-Argentina border. Of the 45 on board, 12 died in the crash, five died by the following morning, and one died from his injuries a week later. The survivors were eventually forced to resort to cannibalism to live, feeding off the bodies of the dead that had been preserved by the freezing temperatures. On 12 December, the remaining survivors sent three of their own to find help. After sending one of the party back to the crash site to preserve rations, the remaining two found help. The 14 survivors remaining at the crash site were rescued in a mission that ended on 23 December. The story would spawn a critically acclaimed book in 1974, along with several film adaptations.

• 1964 – Queen Elizabeth was flown from London to Ottawa on the first Air Canada DC 8 sporting the new tiles and paint scheme.

• 1962 – First flight of the Dassault Balzac V

• 1956 – The first CP-121 Tracker was delivered to the RCN for duty on HMCS Bonaventure.

• 1955 – A Boeing B-47B-40-BW Stratojet, 51-2231, of the 320th Bombardment Wing, crashes while taking off from March Air Force Base, California. Capt. Edward A. O'Brien Jr., pilot, Capt. David J. Clare, co-pilot, Major Thomas F. Mulligan, navigator, and Capt. Joseph M. Graeber, chaplain are all killed.

• 1954 – Royal Navy Lt. B. D. Mcfarlane has extraordinary escape when his Westland Wyvern TF1, VZ783, 'X', of 813 Squadron, suffers power failure on take-off from HMS Albion in the Mediterranean Sea due to unforeseen tendency of the turboprop engine to suffer fuel starvation in high-G catapult launch. Aircraft goes into water off the bow, is cut in half by the ship, pilot ejects underwater using Martin-Baker Mk.2B ejection seat, survives with slight injuries.

• 1950 – First flight of the Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation

• 1949 – First flight of the Tupolev Tu-14

• 1943 – The Italian royal government declares war on Germany. Its air force will be constituted as the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force and fight on the Allied side for the remainder of World War II, while Italian aircraft which fight for Benito Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic on the Axis side will be constituted as the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (National Republican Air Force).

• 1943 – Nine Japanese four-engine bombers attack Attu. It is the last Japanese air raid against the Aleutian Islands.

• 1931 – Canadian pilot Godfrey Dean performs the first loop in an autogyro, at Willow Field, near Philadelphia.

• 1930 – First flight of the Junkers Ju 52

• 1923 – Alexis Maneyrol – French Aviator is killed at Lympne Air Races, Kent.

• 1922 – First flight of the de Havilland DH.27 Derby

• 1920 – First flight of the Naval Aircraft Factory TF

• 1919 – Convention relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation signed in

• 1914 – The Imperial Japanese Navy attempts air-to-air combat for the first time, as a naval airplane joins three Imperial Japanese Army airplanes in an attempt to attack a German reconnaissance plane during the Siege of Tsingtao. The German aircraft escapes.

• 1913 – Imperial German Air Force-Lt. Koening is killed in crash near Neuendorf Aerodrome near Berlin. Lts Soren and Rohstadt are injured while taking a flight between Berlin and Stuttgart

• 1902 – Over Paris, Hungarian-born French diplomat Herlad de Bradsky and electrical engineer Paul Morin fly an airship of their own design on its first test flight. At an altitude of about 600 feet (183 m), the gondola separates from rest of the airship and the two men fall to their deaths.

October 14

• 2012 – Human Rights Watch accuses the Syrian government of using Russian-made cluster bombs in air attacks on populated areas and near key battlefields.[1]

• 2012 – Turkey closes its airspace to Syrian civilian flights.[2]

• 2012 – General Chuck Yeager USAF (Ret.), age 89, breaks the sound barrier again in a commemorative flight over Edwards AFB, CA

• 2011 – Moremi Air Cessna 208 Crash occurred shortly after takeoff from Xakanaka Airstrip. The plane was heading to Pom Pom Airstrip, a notable place for tourists. Eight of the twelve passengers on board died.

• 2011 – The fourth prototype Xian JH-7A, 814, of the China Flight Test Establishment of the People's Liberation Army Air Force crashed into a marsh near Wei Nan City, Pucheng in Shaanxi Province, China, while performing in an airshow associated with the China International General Aviation Convention. Airframe came down ~1 mile (~1.6 km.) from Pucheng Neifu Airport. One pilot ejected safely but the second crewman is killed in the crash.

• 2005 – Air Jamaica Express ceased operations.

• 2004 – Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701 (ICAO: FLG3701, IATA: 9E3701, or Flagship 3701) crashed near Jefferson City, Missouri, United States. It was an overnight ferry flight (with no passengers) from Little Rock, Arkansas, U. S. to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, U. S. Both crew members were killed.

• 2004 – MK Airlines Flight 1602, a Boeing 747-200F, crashes on takeoff from Halifax Stanfield International Airport, killing all 7 on board.

• 1987 – An Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk, 83-815, of the 4450th Tactical Group, piloted by Maj. Michael C. Stewart, callsign BURNR ("burner") 54, crashes at 2033 hrs., ~100 miles N of Nellis AFB, just E of Tonopah. Stewart was just 40 minutes into a routine single-ship sortie when his plane crashed into the gently sloping terrain 60 miles E of Alamo, Nevada, pilot KWF.

• 1975 – A USAF McDonnell Douglas F-15A-7-MC Eagle, 73-0088, c/n 0027/A022, of the 555th TFTS, 58th TFTW, crashes W of Minersville, Utah, due to electrical smoke/fire from generator failure; pilot ejects safely. This was the first F-15 crash.

• 1975 – An RAF Avro Vulcan B.2, XM645, of 9 Sqn RAF Waddington breaks up over Żabbar, Malta, after a hard landing shears off the port-side undercarriage, piercing a wing fuel tank and starting a fire. The pilot and co-pilot initiate a second landing attempt but eject when they realize that the plane cannot make it back to the runway. The subsequent explosion kills 5 crew members who remained aboard, and an electrical cable severed by falling debris kills a bystander on the ground.

• 1968 – The first live telecast from any manned spacecraft, the Apollo 7, was launched by the NASA from Florida.

• 1965 – Joe Engle in an X-15 reaches an altitude of 80 km (49 miles).

• 1964 – First flight of the Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion (YCH-53)

• 1964 – Boeing B-50D-80-BO Superfortress, 48-065, converted to KB-50J, of the 421st Air Refueling Squadron, Takhli RTAFB, crashed in Thailand this date shortly after takeoff on training mission while supporting Yankee missions over Laos. Corrosion found in wreckage led to early retirement of the KB-50 fleet and its replacement with Boeing KC-135s.

• 1962 – A US Air Force Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance flight over Cuba reveals the presence of launchpads for Medium Range Ballistic Missiles, triggering the Cuban Missile Crisis

• 1955 – A Strategic Air Command Boeing B-47E-90-BW Stratojet, 52-500, crashes while attempting landing on 3,400-foot (1,000 m) runway 27 at NAS Atlanta, Georgia, shearing off tail and coming to rest beside runway. This facility is now DeKalb-Peachtree Airport.

• 1953 – First flight of the North American X-10

• 1953 – Second of two Bell X-5 swing-wing testbeds, 50-1839, gets into irrecoverable spin condition at Edwards AFB, California during aggravated stall test, crashes in desert, killing test pilot Maj. Raymond Popson on his first flight in the type. On the same date, the nose gear of the XF-92 collapses, ending use by NACA.

• 1949 – First flight of the Fairchild C-123 Provider

• 1947 - Capt Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound, past MACH 1 in the Bell X-1 named Glamorous Glennis at Muroc AFB, CA; now Edwards Air Force Base, CA. www.chuckyeager.com

• 1944 – 104 China-based B-29 s attack Formosa for the first time, striking an aircraft plant at Okayama. The combined bombload of 650 tons (589,676 kg) is the largest in history at the time.

• 1943 – U. S. 8th Air Force loses 60 B-17 Flying Fortresses during an assault on Schweinfurt.

• 1942 – The Japanese battleships Kongō and Haruna bombard Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field firing 973 14-inch (356-mm) shells in 1 h 23 min. The shelling kills 41 men and leaves only 42 aircraft operational out of 90 at the airfield.

• 1942 – P/O Beurling, flying a Supermarine Spitfire of No. 249 (RAF) Squadron, destroyed three enemy aircraft over Malta, but was shot down and wounded.

• 1941 – First accident involving Saro Lerwick flying boat assigned to No. 4 OTU occurs when L7268 dives into the sea near Tarbat Ness following failure of the port engine. Type could not maintain altitude on single powerplant. Six crew killed, three recovered alive.

• 1940 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious raid Leros.

• 1938 – First flight of the Saro A.33 K4773

• 1938 – First flight of the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk

• 1929 – First flight of the Airship R101 from Cardington, Bedfordshire, over London.

• 1927 – 14-15 – Dieudonne Costes and Joseph le Brix make the first non-stop aerial crossing of the South Atlantic, flying a Breguet 19 from Saint-Louis, Senegal to Port Natal in Brazil, as a part of their round-the-world 57,000 km trip.
• 1922 – The Boeing-built MB-3 A (No. 54) flown by Lt. D. F. Stace wins the Pulitzer Trophy Race at Selfridge Field, Mich., flying 147.8 miles per hour over a 200-mile course.

• 1918 – Baron Willy Coppens, highest scoring Belgian ace, is heavily wounded, ending his combat career. He had scored 37 victories, 34 of which were observation balloons.

• 1910 – First confirmed flight over Norway by Carl Cederström.

• 1910 – English aviator Claude Grahame-White lands his Farman biplane on Executive Avenue (now Pennsylvania Avenue) near the White House.

• 1908 – Henry Farman makes the first cross-country flight in a power-driven aeroplane, from Bouy to Reims (27 km) in 20 min.

• 1905 – The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) is founded in Paris

• 1897 – Clément Ader makes a 300 m flight in his steam-powered uncontrolled Avion III also referred to as Aquilon or the Éole III. The Army is not impressed and withdraws funding.

October 15

• 2012 – Towed through the streets of Los Angeles, California, the retired Space Shuttle Endeavour completes a 12-mile (19 km) journey from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center for museum display. Endeavour had left the airport on 12 October, and numerous logistical problems along the route cause it to arrive at the science center 17 hours late.[1]

• 2009 – An Antonov An-28 of Blue Wing Airlines departs the runway on landing at Kwamelasemoetoe Airstrip, Suriname, and hits an obstacle. The aircraft is substantially damaged and four people are injured, one seriously.

• 2009 – A United States Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16C Block 50D Fighting Falcon, 91-0365, is lost while flying on a routine night flying exercise from the 77th Fighter Squadron, 20th Fighter Wing, based at the Shaw Air Force Base, Sumter, South Carolina when it collides mid-air with F-16C Block 50D Fighting Falcon, 91-0364. The two aircraft from the 20th Fighter Wing were training with night vision equipment and practicing combat tactics when the accident occurred 40 miles (64 km) east of Folly Beach, South Carolina at ~2030 hrs. The United States Coast Guard commenced a search for a missing aircraft in the North Atlantic of the coast of South Carolina while the second aircraft, piloted by Capt. Lee Bryant, despite damage was able to land at Charleston Air Force Base. on 16 October, Coast Guard searchers found crash debris in the Atlantic Ocean believed to belong to the missing F-16. "The Coast Guard has found some debris in the ocean that is apparently from our missing F-16", said Robert Sexton, the Shaw Air Force Base Public Affairs chief in Sumter, South Carolina The other pilot, Capt. Nicholas Giglio, is missing. "They have not yet found any sign of the pilot and the search continues", Mr. Sexton said. No one witnessed what happened to Captain Giglio after the collision.

• 2007 – Airbus delivers its first A380 superjumbo jet, to Singapore Airlines.

• 2003 – China launches Shenzhou 5, its first manned space mission.

• 2003 – Yang Liwei becomes the People's Republic of China's first man in space.

• 2001 – NASA’s Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter’s moon Io.

• 1997 – The Cassini probe, built primarily to explore the rings and moons of Saturn, is launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a US Air Force Titan IV/Centaur rocket. Twelve years later, spacecraft continues its mission.

• 1989 – A U.S. Air Force General Dynamics F-16D Block 32F Fighting Falcon, 87-0369, c/n 5D-63, from Luke AFB, Arizona, crashed in the middle of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress parking ramp at Carswell AFB, Texas, during a simulated airfield attack for an Operational Readiness Inspection for the 301st Tactical Fighter Wing (AFRES). The two pilots aboard the F-16D were both killed. Three B-52H aircraft parked nearby suffered minor damage.

• 1988 – First flight of the MBB Bo 108 D-HBOX

• 1985 – First flight of the Fairchild T-46

• 1970 – The first successful aircraft hijacking in the Soviet Union takes place, when the Lithuanian nationalist Pranas Brazinskas and his son Algirdas seize Aeroflot Flight 244, an Antonov An-24, over the Soviet Union, after a shoot-out on board with guards in which a flight attendant is killed and several other crew members are wounded. The hijackers force the plane to fly to Trabzon, Turkey, where they surrender to Turkish authorities.

• 1962 – Commencment of Operation Rho Delta, with RCAF Hercules freighting CF-104 s to the Air Division from Canadair.

• 1962 – Eighty two days after the failure of the Bluegill Prime test in Operation Fishbowl, under Operation Dominic, a third attempt is made, Bluegill Double Prime. Launched from rebuilt facilities on Johnston Island, damaged in the last attempt, at ~2330 hrs., local time (16 October UTC), the SM-75 Thor missile, 58-2267, vehicle number 156, malfunctions and begins tumbling out of control about 85 seconds after liftoff, and the range safety officer orders the destruction of the missile and its nuclear warhead about 95 seconds after launch. Although, by definition, this qualifies as a Broken Arrow incident, this test is rarely included in lists of such mishaps.

• 1959 – A USAF Boeing B-52F-100-BO Stratofortress, 57-036, collides with Boeing KC-135A-BN Stratotanker, 57-1513, over Hardinsberg, Kentucky, crashes with two nuclear weapons on board, killing four of eight on the bomber and all four tanker crew. One bomb partially burned in fire, but both are recovered intact. Bombs moved to the AEC's Clarksville, Tennessee storage site for inspection and dismantlement. Both aircraft deployed from Columbus AFB, Mississippi.

• 1958 – A USAF Fairchild C-123 Provider, en route from Dobbins AFB, Georgia, to Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York, runs out of fuel, comes down on the Southern State Parkway on Long Island while attempting emergency landing at Zahn's Airport at North Amityville, one-half mile short, injuring five, and killing one motorist. The transport skids several hundred feet, passes through an underpass, and strikes three cars. Harold J. Schneider, West Islip, New York, dies of head injuries shortly after the accident. Three Air Force men and two women motorists suffer minor injuries. They are identified as Mrs. Mary Rehm, Islip Terrace, and Mrs. Frank Calabrese, West Islip. The injured Air Force men are identified as Capt. John Florio, Sgt. Wallett A. Carman and Sgt. Edgar H. Williamson. The pilot was Lt. Gary L. Moolson. The aircraft, with a 119 foot wingspan, passed through a 50-foot wide underpass, shearing both outer wings, the port engine, and the vertical fin, before coming to a stop on fire.

• 1955 – A Lockheed T-33A-1-LO Shooting Star trainer, 51-9227, crashes into Santa Monica Bay. Pilot Richard Martin Theiler, 28, and co-pilot Paul Dale Smith departed Los Angeles International Airport at 0215 PST aboard the T-33A, bound for Yuma, Arizona. This was an IFR departure, with instructions to report 2,000 feet (610 m) on top of overcast. The Los Angeles weather at the time was 1,200 feet (370 m) overcast, 4 miles (6.4 km) visibility, in haze and smoke. After they were given clearance for takeoff they were never seen nor heard from again. Plane was found in 2009 by aviation archaeologist G. Pat Macha and a group of volunteers, in 100 feet of water.

• 1952 – First flight of the Douglas X-3 Stiletto (knife-like shape). The X-3 was built to test the effects of high temperatures induced by high speeds on an aircraft.

• 1951 – RCAF Ground Observer Corps was formed.

• 1951 – Convair B-36D-35-CF Peacemaker, 49-2664, c/n 127, '664', triangle 'J' tail markings, of the 436th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing, Carswell AFB, Texas, experiences main gear extension failure, pilot Maj. Leslie W. Brockwell bellies it in at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, with just the nose gear extended, doing such a deft job that this is the only B-36 ever crashlanded that was returned to flight.

• 1950 – First Technical Training Unit was formed in the RCAF Auxiliary at Vancouver. Over the next three years, eight additional units would be formed.

• 1947 – Second prototype Westland Wyvern TF Mk. 1, (N.11/44), TS375, powered by Rolls-Royce Eagle, crashes during attempted forced landing at RAE Farnborough after its propeller stopped, killing Westland test pilot Squadron Leader Peter J. Garner, late of the RAF. Aircraft was to rendezvous for air-to-air photography for Flight's renowned photographer John Yoxall, but before photo shoot can take place, a bearing fails and both contra-props stop, pilot unable to round-off properly from steep dive due to immense drag of eight stopped blades, drops heavily into the intended field, breaks into pieces, pilot unconscious, airframe burns almost completely.

• 1946 – Hermann Göring commits suicide by poisoning himself in his jail cell at Nuremberg, Germany, the day before his scheduled hanging for war crimes. A World War I ace with 22 victories and one of the leaders of the German Nazi movement and government, he had served as Supreme Commander of the German Luftwaffe from 1935 to 1945.

• 1945 – Nos. 423 and 433 (Bomber) Squadrons were disbanded.

• 1943 – American Airlines Flight 63 (Flagship Missouri), a DC-3, crashes near Centerville, Tennessee, killing all eight passengers and three crewmembers, after ice formed on its wings and propeller.

• 1942 – No. 426 (Bomber) Squadron was formed in England.

• 1942 – Douglas C-49E-DO Skytrain, 42-43619, DST-114, c/n 1494, first DC-3, ex-American Airlines Douglas Sleeper Transport NC14988, A115 "Texas", first flown as X14988 on 17 December 1935; sold to TWA, 14 March 1942, as line number 361; commandeered by USAAF, 31 March 1942; assigned to the 24th Troop Carrier Squadron, crashed this date in bad weather at Knobnoster, Missouri.[153][154] Another source gives crash location as 2.5 mi SW of Chicago Municipal Airport, Illinois.

• 1939 – New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia dedicates an airport in Flushing bearing his name. La Guardia airport is the costliest to build at the time, $45 million.

• 1938 – First flight of the Bristol Beaufort

• 1937 – The Condor Legion is redeployed to assist the Spanish Nationalist offensive in Asturias, which immediately speeds up greatly. German pilots led by Adolf Galland experiment with the “carpet bombing” of Asturian positions, in which the Germans fly in close formation very low, approach the enemy positions from the rear, and release their bombs simultaneously.

• 1937 – First flight of the Boeing XB-15

• 1936 – First flight of the Nakajima Ki-27 (Allied reporting names “Nate” and “Abdul”)

• 1933 – The Rolls-Royce Merlin engine is started for the first time.

• 1932 – Tata Sons opens an airmail route between Karachi and Madras, the first regular air service within India.

• 1929 – Martin XT5M-1 divebomber, BuNo A-8051, during terminal dive test at 350 IAS at 8,000 feet, lower starboard wing caves in, ripping extensive hole. NACA test pilot Bill H. McAvoy staggers aircraft back to the Martin field north of Baltimore, Maryland, landing at 110 mph with full-left stick input. Aircraft will go into production as the Martin BM-1.

• 1928 – The airship, the Graf Zeppelin completed its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, USA.

• 1927 – Dieudonné Costes and Joseph Le Brix land in Brazil becoming the first persons to fly non-stop across the South Atlantic. The 2100-mile flight takes just over 18 hours.

• 1925 – A de Havilland DH.53 Humming Bird is successfully launched from the British airship R.33.

• 1923 – First British motor glider competition is flown, at Lympne Aerodrome, Kent.

• 1921 – The Spanish airline Compania Española de Trafico Aereo is established – It will eventually form part of Iberia Airlines.

• 1920 – The first commercial passenger flight into the Canadian north was made this date between Winnipeg and The Pas, Manitoba.

• 1919 – Two more fatalities are recorded in the transcontinental endurance test when 2nd Lts. French Kirby and Stanley C. Miller die in an emergency landing in their DH-4 near the Wyoming–Utah border when they suffer engine failure near Evanston, Wyoming. During the two-week test, 54 accidents wreck or damage planes. Twenty-nine result from motor trouble, 16 from bad landings, 5 from poor weather, 2 when pilots lose their way, 1 in take-off, and 1 by fire. In 42 cases the accident meant the end of the race for the pilot. Seven fatalities occur during the race, one in a de Havilland DH-4B, the others in DH-4s. Lt. John Owen Donaldson was awarded the Mackay Gold Medal for taking first place in the Army's only transcontinental air race. Donaldson Air Force Base, South Carolina, would be eventually named for the Great War ace (eight credited victories).

• 1917 – First flight of the Alcock Scout

• 1915 – Orville Wright sells the Wright Company to a group of New York investors. The Wright Company was founded in 1909 by Orville and his late brother Wilbur Wright.

• 1913 – Lieutenant Ronin makes the first official airmail flight in France.

• 1909 – (15-23) Britain’s first Aviation Meeting held at Doncaster Racecourse.

• 1884 – Arch Hoxsey, pioneer aviator, was born (d. 1910). Hoxsey was amongst one of the first Wright pilots to fly the Wrights’ new Model B aircraft after having been trained by Orville on the model A-B which was a transitional aircraft.

• 1783, Pilâtre de Rozier and Marquis d'Arlandes rise into the air in a Montgolfière tethered to the ground in Paris. de Rozier becomes the first human passenger in a hot-air balloon, rising 26 m (84 ft).

October 16

• 2013 – Lao Airlines Flight 301 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Vientiane to Pakse, Laos. On 16 October 2013, the twin-engine turboprop ATR 72 aircraft on the flight crashed into the Mekong River at Pakse, killing all 49 people on board. This the greatest loss of life in an aviation accident in 2013.[1]

• 2011 – Kenyan Air Force jets strike two villages in Somalia in support of a Kenyan invasion of Somalia to attack militant groups there.[2]

• 2004 – Two OH-58D Kiowas 94-0172 and 97-0130 from 1–25th Aviation Regiment collide near Baghdad, killing two pilots aboard the first craft, and wounding two aboard the other.[3]

• 1997 – First flight of the Boeing 777-300

• 1992 – Flt Lt Nicky Smith, graduated from 89 Course at Shawbury to become the RAF's first female helicopter pilot

• 1992 – One of three U.S. Army McDonnell Douglas AH-64 Apaches of Company B, 1/151st Aviation Battalion, on training mission out of McEntire Air National Guard Base, near Eastover, South Carolina, crashes in wooded area near Dacusville in Pickens County, South Carolina, at ~1700 hrs., injuring two crew. Airframe comes to rest on its starboard side on hilltop near Blue Ridge View Baptist Church off Anthony Road, leaving Army National Guard CWOs Poyas Haynes and Gilbert Terry with minor injuries. They were transported to Greenville Memorial Hospital for treatment. One witness said that one of the helicopter's engines appeared to stall, while another stated that the Apache rolled upside down and then back onto its side as it went down. The Apache was lifted from crashsite on 22 October by a CH-47 Chinook to an open field for transloading onto a truck for transport back to McEntire ANGB.

• 1984 – An unarmed USAF Boeing B-52G Stratofortress, 57‑6479, of the 92nd Bomb Wing out of Fairchild AFB, Washington, crashed about 2100 hrs. into a mesa on the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona 13 miles NE of Kayenta, during a low-level training flight. Eight crew eject and recovered in a day; one ejects, missing; gunner KWF.

• 1980 – A Fairchild UC-123K Provider, 57-6291, c/n 20301, of the 302d Tactical Airlift Wing, Air Force Reserve, crashed at 0830 hrs. shortly after take off from Henry Post Army Airfield, en route home from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, to Columbus-Rickenbacker ANGB, Ohio. Four crew members died on impact, the fifth died later. KWF are Capt. George Freeland, Jr.; Maj. Thomas Brady; Lt. Col. Donald Griffith; T/Sgt. Michael Snodgrass; and Sr. Amn. Robert Haas. A commemorative marker is displayed in Denver Williams Memorial Park, Wilmington, Ohio.

• 1972 – A USAF Convair F-106B-50-CO Delta Dart, 57-2528, of the 4756th Air Defense Wing, Tyndall AFB, Florida, is lost in a crash. This aircraft had survived a mid-air collision on 4 May 1965 with F-106A-80-CO, 57-4721, both assigned to the 539th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, McGuire AFB, New Jersey, the second fighter being lost and 2528 recovering to NAFEC Atlantic City, New Jersey.
• 1972 – A twin-engine Cessna 310 carrying Alaskan House Representative Nick Begich and House majority leader Hale Boggs of Louisiana disappears during a flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska. The plane was flying to a campaign fundraiser for Begich. The aircraft's wreckage was never found, and a 39 day search is called off on November 24.

• 1964 – The People’s Republic of China detonates its first nuclear weapon.

• 1963 – A B-58 Hustler bomber of the U.S. Air Force's 305th Bombardment Wing sets a new speed record by flying from Tokyo, Japan, to London, England, via Alaska and Greenland in 8 hours 35 minutes at an average speed of 938 mph (1,510 km/hr).

• 1961 – Cork Airport opened in Ireland.

• 1956 – Pan Am Flight 6, a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, is forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean between Hawai'i and San Francisco; all 31 on board are rescued by a nearby United States Coast Guard ship.

• 1955 – The Boeing 367-80 (707 prototype) crosses the United States in just 3 hours 58 minutes

• 1953 – Flying a Douglas XF4D-1, Robert Rahm sets a world airpseed record over a 100 km (62 mi) closed-circuit course of 728.11 mph (1,171.53 km/hr) at Muroc Dry Lake, California.

• 1952 – First flight of the Sud Aviation Vautour

• 1944 – 50 fighters of the U. S. Army Air Forces‘ 14th Air Force based at Liuchow Airfield, China, attack the waterfront of Hong Kong.

• 1944 – Task Force 38 completes its operations against Formosa. Since October 11, it has defended itself against approximately 1,000 Japanese aircraft, the heaviest series of Japanese air attacks against U. S. naval forces of World War II with the possible exception of those during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, losing 76 aircraft of its own in combat, 13 aircraft due to non-combat causes, and 64 pilots and aircrewmen.

• 1944 – (16–17) B-29 s again attack Formosa, dropping 640 more tons (580,762 kg) of bombs during the two days combined.

• 1942 – B-25C-1 Mitchell, 41-13206, operated by the USAAF 5th Ferrying Group, Air Transport Command, piloted by James M. Treweek, is on a routine flight from Rosecrans Field, St. Joseph, Missouri to Dallas Love Field when bad weather closes airfield and controllers advise crew to divert. Pilot heads west, presumably bound for Meacham Field, flying below 500 ft (152 m) altitude to stay in visual conditions under low cloud deck. As bomber nears Grapevine, Texas, a wingtip and aileron are sliced off by a guy-wire of WFAA radio tower, causing pilot to lose control; all 6 crewmembers die in subsequent crash.

• 1939 – World War II – After being attacked by Spitfires of Nos. 602 and 603 Squadrons over Lothian in Scotland, an He 111 bomber became the first German aircraft to be shot down over the UK. (First attack on British territory by German Luftwaffe.)

• 1937 – First flight of the Fokker T.V

• 1937 – First flight of the Short Sunderland

• 1924 – Emergency use of parachute — Following a mid-air collision over Coronado, California, Gunner William M. Coles, USN, of VF-1, made a successful emergency parachute jump from his Curtiss JN.

• 1917 – Final testing is made for the US Army-designed air-to-air radio communication system with a wireless set.

• 1912 – The first aerial bomb is used by Bulgarian Air Force pilots Radul Milkov and Prodan Toprakchiev on the Turkish railway station of Karaagac (near Edirne), during the Balkan War. This is the first use of an airplane (Albatros F.II) as bomber.

• 1910 – The first airship crossing of the English Channel is made by the French-built dirgible Cle´ment-Bayard II. The 244-mile route is completed in 6 hours.

• 1908 – Pilot S.F.Cody takes off from Farnborough Common, Great Britain, in his British Army Aeroplane No 1, a biplane powered by a 50 hp (37 kW) Antoinette engine. His flight covers 424 metres before ending in a crash-landing, which he survives.

• 1905 – The Wright brothers complete their 1905 test flight program, making their last flight until May 1908.

October 17

• 2009 – RP-C550, a Douglas DC-3 operated by Victoria Air, crashes shortly after take-off from Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Philippines, on a flight to Puerto Princesa International Airport after an engine malfunctions. All four people on board are killed.

• 2009 – A United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F/A-18D Hornet (164729) from the Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron No. 224 VMFA(AW)-224 based at the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, Beaufort, South Carolina experiences a heavy landing at Jacksonville International Airport, Duval County, Florida. The aircraft with two other Marine F/A-18 Hornet aircraft were landing at Jacksonville Airport in preparation for a flyover at the nearby NFL Jacksonville Jaguars game when the aircraft experiences an airborne technical fault and the port landing-gear collapses causing the aircraft to land only on the nose-wheel, starboard undercarriage and the exposed port-side external fuel-tank. The F/A-18 Hornet skidded down the runway with most damage occurring to the grounded external fuel-tank and the 2 Marine crew were uninjured.

• 2008 – The Russian Air Force grounds all its Mikoyan MiG-29s following a crash in Siberia on this date. The fighter came down 60 kilometers (37 mi) from the Domna airfield during a regular training flight. The pilot ejected safely.

• 1996 – Retired: Vickers Vanguard

• 1988 – Uganda Airlines Flight 775 crashed while attempting to land at Roma-Fiumicino Airport. 33 of the 52 passengers and crew on board were killed.

• 1982 – The last flight of the CF-104 in Canada. 104646 of AETE was ferried Cold Lake to Trenton by Maj Croll and Capt Youngson.

• 1977- German Autumn: Four days after it was hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 lands in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos later rescues all remaining hostages on board.

• 1977- The US ban on Concorde was lifted when the Supreme Court of the United States declined to overturn a lower court's ruling rejecting the Port Authority's efforts to continue the ban.

• 1966 – Lockheed U-2D, 56-6951, Article 391, first airframe of the USAF supplementary production, and assigned to the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, Laughlin AFB, Texas, crashed at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, in a non-fatal accident. The pilot was Maj. Leslie White, who stalled on approach on his first flight. "The pilot survived, but the airplane was washed out," noted Kelly Johnson.

• 1965 – Over North Vietnam, American aircraft carry out their first successful Iron Hand surface-to-air-missile (SAM) site detection and suppression mission.

• 1956 – Mae Jemison, American astronaut, was born. Dr. Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 1992.

• 1953 – Pilot of a Republic F-84F-1-RE Thunderstreak, 51-1354, is killed in an accident at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

• 1951 – Entered Service: Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck with the Royal Canadian Air Force in Malton, Ontario.

• 1944 – In the first day of Operation Millet, the British aircraft carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Victorious launch heavy strikes against Car Nicobar, striking airfields on the island and the harbor and shipping at Nancowry. Japanese antiaircraft fire shoots down three British planes.

• 1944 – (17–19) Carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 strike targets on Luzon.

• 1940 – First flight of the Airspeed Fleet Shadower

• 1931 – The first hook-on test of the U. S. Navy’s parasite fighter program takes places, as the Curtiss XF9 C-1 prototype successfully docks with the dirigible USS Los Angeles (ZR-3).

• 1922 – Lt. Virgil C. Griffin makes the first take-off from a US aircraft carrier in a Vought VE-7 from USS Langley.

• 1922 – Lt U.S. Army's largest blimp, C-2, catches fire shortly after being removed from its hangar at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas for a flight. Seven of eight crew aboard are injured, mostly in jumping from the craft. This accident was made the occasion for official announcement by the Army and the Navy that the use of hydrogen would be abandoned "as speedily as possible." On 14 September 1922, the C-2 had made the first transcontinental airship flight, from Langley Field, Virginia, to Foss Field, California, under the command of Maj H. A. Strauss.

• 1913 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin L 2, LZ18, destroyed by an exploding engine during a test flight - the entire crew of 28 was killed.

• 1900 – On her second flight, the Zeppelin LZ-1 remains aloft for 80 min.

October 18

• 2012 – Syrian Air Force jets destroy two residential buildings and a mosque in the rebel-held town of Maarrat al-Nu'man, reportedly killing at least 44 people.[1]

• 2011 – Iran Air Flight 742, a Boeing 727-200, from Moscow, Russia to Tehran, Iran lands without nose gear at Mehrabad International Airport. All 94 passengers and 14 crew members survive without injuries.

• 2002 – Boeing reveals its Bird of Prey stealth technology demonstrator, which has conducted a number of flights during the period 1996 to 1999.

• 2002 – Two Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornets collide during Air Combat Maneuvering off the Southern California coast and crash into Pacific 80 mi SW of Monterey, California. All four crew (two Pilots and two WSOs) are KWF.

• 1993 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-58 at 10:53 am EDT. Mission highlights: Spacelab mission.

• 1989 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-34 at 12:53:40 EDT. Mission highlights: Galileo Jupiter probe deployment, IMAX.

• 1983 – Pan Am and American Airlines announce they will trade aircraft; Pan Am will send 15 McDonnell Douglas DC-10s to American in exchange for 8 Boeing 747s. It is the first time in history two airlines agree to a swap.

• 1979 – First flight of the McDonnell Douglas MD-80

• 1967 – The Soviet probe Venera 4 reaches Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to measure the atmosphere of another planet.

• 1958 – The last Canadian-built North American Sabre, the 1815th produced, was delivered to representatives of West Germany.

• 1958 – NAVY SQUADRON AEWRON FIFTEEN (VW-15) AIRCRAFT: Lockheed WV-2 Warning Star, BuNo 141294, LOCATION: NAS Argentia, Newfoundland. EVENT: Crashed into Placentia Bay 1000 feet short of runway during CGA landing trying to get under weather; flight from Pax to Arg. U.S. Naval Aviation Safety Center, Accident Brief No. 10, May 1960: "The ceiling was reported indefinite 200 feet, visibility 2 miles in drizzle and fog. A precision approach was commenced to the duty runway. The approach was within tolerances and normal until after passing through GCA minimums, at which time the aircraft went below glide path and the pilot was instructed to take a waveoff. The waveoff was not executed until after the aircraft had actually made contact with the runway. After climbout, GCA was contacted and a second approach was requested to commence with no delay. The pilot advised GCA that the runway was in sight just before GCA gave him a waveoff on the first approach. The second approach was again normal until the final controller gave the instructions, "Approaching GCA minimums." The aircraft immediately commenced dropping below glide path. An emergency pullup was given, but the aircraft collided with the water [Placentia Bay] and came to rest 2050 feet east of the approach end of the runway. It sank in 26 feet of water and 11 persons lost their lives." LOSS: 11 of 29-man crew & passengers killed: CREW: LT Donald A. Becker, PPC, CDR Raymond L. Klassy, VW-13, ENS Donald E. Mulligan, Lyle W. Foster, American Red Cross, A. S. Corrado, Robert N. Elliot, AN, R. J. Emerson, Clarence J. Shea, J. E. Strange, William Jerome Taylor, AD3 (body never recovered), and D. D. Wilson.

• 1948 – A USAF Douglas C-54D-10-DC Skymaster, 42-72688, c/n 10793, participating in the Berlin Airlift, crashes near Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, killing three crew, Capt. James A. Vaughn, 1st Lt. Eugene Erickson and Sgt. Richard Winter.

• 1944 – A United States Army Air Forces Consolidated B-24H-20-CF Liberator, 42-50347 broke up in mid air over the town of Birkenhead, England. The aircraft was on a flight from New York to Liverpool and the accident killed all 24 airmen on board the aircraft.

• 1943 – No. 168 (Heavy Transport) Squadron was formed at Rockcliffe, Ontario.

• 1943 – From Dobodura, New Guinea, the Fifth Air Force mounts another raid on Rabaul of about the same size as the October 12 raid, but bad weather hampers the aircraft and only 54 B-25 Mitchell bombers get through.

• 1938 – The first major air transfer of RCAF to the West as Wapities of the No. 3 Squadron flew from Ottawa to Calgary.

• 1933 – First flight of the Grumman F2F, a Grumman’s first single-seat, enclosed-cockpit aircraft

• 1927 – Count Jacques de Lesseps and his mechanic were lost in a Schreck flying boat in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near St. Felicite, Quebec.

• 1925 – Sadi Lecointe wins the Beumont Cup, with a speed of 194 mph (312 km/h).

• 1909 – Charles Comte de Lambert, Wilbur Wright’s first aviation pupil, flies around the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

• 1908 – Wilbur Wright climbs to 115 m above Auvours.

October 19

• 2004 – Corporate Airlines Flight 5966' a British Aerospace Jetstream, crashes near Kirksville, Missouri in the United States; 13 of the 15 people on board die.

• 1992 – A Panavia Tornado crashes in the evening on the Nellis AFB, Nevada range, 100 miles NE of Las Vegas, during Red Flag combat exercises, killing two crew from the Italian Air Force.

• 1988 – Indian Airlines Flight 113, a Boeing 737, hits an electric mast 5 miles (8 kilometers) out on approach in poor visibility in Ahmedabad, India. All six crew members and 124 of 129 passengers are killed.

• 1986 – República de Moçambique Tupolev Tu-134A-3, C9-CAA, c/n 63457, with crew of nine and 35 passengers, crashes on approach at 2121 hrs. to Maputo International Airport (MPM/FQMA), Mozambique after flight from Mbala Airport (MMQ), Zambia, killing eight crew and 26 passengers, including Mozambique President Samora Machel who had attended a meeting of African leaders in Zambia. While approaching Maputo, an inadvertent selection of the MATSAPA VOR frequency caused the crew to execute a premature 37-degrees turn. Although the pilot queried the turn, no effort was made to verify it by using the available navigational aids. The aircraft descended below the 3000 feet limit in spite of not having visual contact with Maputo. The crew erroneously assumed a power failure at Maputo. A 32-second GPWS warning was ignored and the aircraft collided with the ground at 2187 feet, bounced and crashed into an uphill slope. The aircraft broke up, slid across the South African/Swaziland border and caught fire.

• 1978 – A USAF Boeing B-52D-75-BO Stratofortress, 56-0594, of the 22d Bomb Wing, crashes at 0730 hrs. in light fog in a plowed field ~2.5 miles SE of March AFB, near the rural community of Sunnymead, California, shortly after take-off. Five crew killed, but one is able to escape the burning wreckage and was reported in stable condition at the base hospital. Traffic was disrupted on nearby Interstate 15E.

• 1977 – Concorde made its first landing in New York City and for New Yorkers, it was love at 1st sight!

• 1972 – A USAF Convair F-106B-55-CO Delta Dart, 57-2538, c/n 8-27-32, of the Air Defense Weapons Center, Tyndall AFB, Florida, is lost in a crash, pilot KWF. This second accident in three days will be the last fatal Tyndall accident until the loss of a Lockheed T-33A on 30 May 1975.

• 1971 – Grumman Grumman E-2B Hawkeye and LTV A-7B Corsair II, both from the USS Midway, CVA-41, collide over the Sea of Japan, with E-2 crashing near the stern of the carrier, all five crew lost. A-7 pilot ejected safely, picked up by helicopter from MCAS Iwakuni in good condition.

• 1970 – Hindustan Aeronautics completes its first licence-built MiG-21

• 1968 – USAF test pilot Major William “Pete” Knight wins the Harmon international aviator’s trophy for “exceptional individual piloting performance”.

• 1965 – The U. S. Army’s month-long Ia Drang Valley campaign begins in South Vietnam. It will be the first combat action of the U. S. Army’s first Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the first major combat between American and North Vietnamese forces.

• 1965 – Second (of five) Ling-Temco-Vought XC-142As, 62-5922, suffers second accident when the number one main propeller pitch actuator suffers a hydraulic fluid blow-by problem just prior to touchdown at the Vought facility at NAS Dallas, Texas. A ground loop results with substantial damage to the landing gear and wing. In 1966 the damaged wing is replaced with an undamaged unit from XC-142A No. 3, 62-5923, out-of-service since its own landing accident on 3 January 1966. 62-5922 returns to flight status on 23 July 1966.

• 1965 – (19-25) U. S. Army attack helicopters and U. S. Air Force cargo aircraft play a major role in lefting the Siege of Plei Me in South Vietnam.

• 1964 – First flight of the Agusta A.101

• 1958 – A People’s Republic of China-owned Tupolev Tu-104 crashes at Kanash during a regular flight between Beijing and Moscow, killing all 65 passengers and crew members. Among those killed are 16 Chinese government officials, one Briton, four East Germans and the son of the Cambodian ambassador to China.

• 1954 – First flying prototype Grumman XF9F-9 Tiger, BuNo 138604, suffers flame-out, the pilot, Lt. Cdr. W. H. Livingston, was able to put it down on the edge of a wood near the Grumman company runway at Bethpage, Long Island, New York, escaping with minor injuries. Airframe written-off. Production models will be redesignated F11F.

• 1948 – Royal Navy Grumman Avenger III, KE443, 'FD 068', of 703 Squadron, shorebased at Ford, Sussex, noses over on landing aboard HMS Illustrious. Airframe is not repaired and ends up on fire dump at Gosport, Hampshire, surviving until at least mid-1950.

• 1945 – No. 168 (HT) Squadron flew Canadian Red Cross medical supplies from Rockcliffe Airport to Poland. One Boeing Fortress crashed at Munster, Germany, during the operation, killing the five crew members.

• 1944 – In a meeting at Mabalacat on Luzon, the newly arrived commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s First Air Fleet, Vice Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, commanding Japanese naval air forces in the Philippine Islands, observes that ordinary air tactics have become ineffective against the U. S. Navy and suggests the formation of a special attack unit to crash Zero fighters carrying 250-kg (551-lb) bombs bodily onto American warships. It is the beginning of the formation of kamikaze suicide units.

• 1944 – In the second and final day of Operation Millet, the British aircraft carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Victorious again launch heavy strikes against Nancowry harbor and the airfields on Car Nicobar. In a dogfight with Japanese Nakajima Ki-43 (Allied reporting name “Oscar”) fighters, the British shoot down seven Ki-43 s in exchange for a Hellcat and two Corsairs.

• 1943 – The RCAF’s worst accident killed 24 servicemen travelling on leave from Newfoundland to Montreal. The aircraft was a Liberator from No. 10 B. R. Squadron.

• 1933 – Fokker Y1O-27, 31-601, '22', of the 32d Bombardment Squadron, Rockwell Field, California, during ferry flight from Rockwell to Brooks Field, Texas, pilot Capt. Albert F. Hegenberger, on leg between Tucson, Arizona and Midland, Texas, loses Prestone coolant out of starboard engine, engine temperature rises so he shuts it down. Forced down five miles short of Midland Airport, pilot does not get the landing gear completely locked down, collapses on touch down. Aircraft repaired.

• 1932 – First flight of the Mitsubishi 3MT5

• 1931 – Sole Lockheed-Detroit YP-24, 32-320, crashes during tests at Wright Field, Ohio. During evaluation flight, landing gear extension system fails with gear only partly deployed when in-cockpit crank handle breaks off. Through a series of violent maneuvers, test pilot Lt. Harrison Crocker managed to get the gear retracted and was planning to attempt a belly-landing, but upon orders from the ground, sent aloft written on the sides of Boeing P-12D And Douglas O-25C aircraft, he bails out. Four Y1P-24 pre-production models cancelled due to Detroit Aircraft's shaky financial situation. Two will be built as Consolidated Y1P-25s after Detroit's chief designer Robert Wood joins that firm. Second Y1P-25 completed with a supercharger as Y1A-11.

• 1917 – Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.

• 1917 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin LZ50 L 16, damaged beyond repair in a forced landing near Brunsbüttel.

• 1911 – Eugene Ely dies in an aircrash.

• 1911 – Aviation pioneer Bob Fowler flies from San Francisco to Jacksonville, Florida. The west to east coast-to-coast journey has taken almost four months to complete (Arrival Date Feb 12, 1912).

• 1908 – First flight of the Antoinette IV

• 1901 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flies his dirigible Number 6 around the Eiffel Tower to collect a FF100,000 prize.

October 20

• 2012 – The Syrian Expatriates Organization claims that a combination of Syrian government airstrikes and a military blockade over the previous 130 days have destroyed 75 percent of the city of Deir ez-zor, Syria, killing over 3,000 people and causing 380,000 to flee the city.[1]

• 1995 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-73 at 9:53:00 am EDT. Mission highlights: Spacelab mission.

• 1988 – Sheila Scott, English aviatrix died (b. 1922). Scott broke over 100 aviation records through her long distance flight endeavours, which included a 34,000 mile (54,400 km) “world and a half” flight 1971 on which she became the first person to fly over the North Pole in a small aircraft.

• 1987 – USAF LTV A-7D-4-CV Corsair II, 69-6207, of the 4450th Tactical Group, Nellis AFB, Nevada, loses all power 15 miles S of Indianapolis, Indiana at 31,000 feet while en route from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. Pilot tries to dead-stick into Indianapolis International Airport but receives poor direction from air traffic controllers and crashes at ~0915 hrs. during late turn after aiming plane at a baseball field but fighter veers, striking bank branch roof and hitting center of Ramada Inn across the street, killing nine employees, injuring five others (one of whom died later as a result of the injuries sustained). Pilot Maj. Bruce L. Teagarden, 35, ejected, suffering bruises and muscle strain. He lands in parking lot of Ace Supply Company, four blocks from the hotel. Air Force pays out $50,427 in property claims damages, according to The New York Times on 26 October. This A-7D was part of the unit then secretly operating Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk stealth aircraft but this was successfully kept out of the media for several years.

• 1983 – Japanese Air Self Defense Force McDonnell-Douglas F-15DJ Eagle, 12-8053, of the 202 Hiko-tai, crashes into the Pacific Ocean 110 miles E of Nyutubaru Air Base, Japan, during low altitude night flying training.

• 1982 – A Swiss Air Force Hawker Hunter is shot down by another Hunter during an exercise at Cherroux near Payne, Switzerland.

• 1980 – First dog fights of the Iran-Iraq War]. An Iraqi Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 is shot down by Iranian F-4 Phantoms

• 1977 – In the 1977 Convair CV-300 crash, the airliner chartered by the band Lynyrd Skynyrd runs out of fuel en route to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, crashing five miles (8 km) north of Gillsburg, Mississippi in a swampy pine forest while trying to reach an alternate airport; band members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve and Cassie Gaines, plus assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick and the two pilots of the plane, are killed in the accident.

• 1969 – Finnair introduces an inertial navigation system on its aircraft, becoming the first airline to dispense with the need for a navigator aboard.

• 1956 – First flight of the Bell UH-1 Iroquois

• 1953 – A TWA Lockheed Constellation makes the first non-stop, scheduled passenger flight across the United States

• 1953 – Northrop YF-89D Scorpion, 49-2463, crashes at Edwards AFB, California, killing Northrop test pilot Walter P. Jones and Northrop radar operator Jack Collingsworth.

• 1950 – US paratroops are used to cut off supplies from Pyongyang

• 1948 – First flight of the McDonnell XF-88 Voodoo

• 1948 – In the 1948 KLM Constellation air disaster, a Lockheed Constellation named Nijmegen crashes near Prestwick, Scotland, killing 40.

• 1944 – Lockheed YP-80A-LO Shooting Star, 44-83025, c/n 080-1004, crashes at Burbank, California after main fuel pump failure, killing Lockheed test pilot Milo Burcham.

• 1944 – U. S. forces invade Leyte in the Philippine Islands. U. S. Army Air Forces aircraft fly nearly 300 sorties in support.

• 1943 – A U. S. Navy PBY Catalina flying boat and an Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G4 M (Allied reporting name “Betty”) bomber exchange fire off Attu. It is the last air combat action in the Aleutian Islands.

• 1941 – A Messerschmitt Bf 109F–2, Werk Nr. 12764, previously flown by Rolf Pingel (1 October 1913 – 4 April 2000), a German Luftwaffe ace and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, captured on 10 July 1941 when Pingel was forced to crash land in England near St. Margarets Bay after being hit by fire from a British Short Stirling bomber that he was pursuing, returned to flying condition by the RAF and allocated the serial ES906, crashes this date near Fowlmere, killing Polish pilot F/O J. Skalski.

• 1937 – The Republican submarine C-6 is scuttled at Gijón, Spain, after suffering damage in an Nationalist air attack.

• 1934 – MacRobertson Air Race flown from England to Melbourne, Australia to celebrate the centenary of the state of Victoria. The £75,000 prize money is won by C. W. A. Scott and Tom Black flying de Havilland DH.88 Comet Grosvenor House.

• 1934 – (October 20-November 3) Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first eastward crossing of the Pacific Ocean, from Brisbane, Australia to San Francisco, California, in the Lady Southern Cross. The Hawaii-to-San Francisco leg of his crossing on November 3 is the first eastward flight from Hawaii to North America.

• 1929 – The airfield at Naval Air Station Glenview, located in Glenview, Illinois, is dedicated, and its hangar deemed the largest in the world.

• 1924 – First recorded RCAF mercy flight took place from Vancouver BC to Norway House, Manitoba.

• 1923 – First flight of the Tupolev ANT-7, a Soviet reconnaissance aircraft and escort fighter.

• 1923 – 1923 – First flight of the Boeing NB

• 1922 – Lt Harold Harris makes the first parachute escape from a stricken aircraft, bailing out of a Loening PW-2 over Dayton, Ohio.

• 1920 – Flying his Nieuport Delage, Sadi Lecointe set a world speed record when he flew 187.99 mph.

• 1919 – The French pilot Bernard de Romanet, flying a Nieuport-Delage 29v, sets a new world speed record of 268.79 km/hr (166.92 mph).

October 21

• 2011 – An electric-powered multicopter achieves sustained flight without ground assistance for the first time, when the battery-powered, 16-rotor e-volo VC1 helicopter achieves an altitude of 3 meters (10 feet) for 90 seconds at Karlsruhe, Germany. The VC1 reportedly can remain airborne for 20 minutes on a single charge. The flight will win e-volo the Lindbergh Prize for advances in environmentally friendly ("green") aviation.[1]

• 2011 – First flight of the e-volo VC1[1]

• 2009 – Northwest Airlines Flight 188, an Airbus A320-212 with 149 people on board, lands in Minneapolis, Minnesota, an hour late after its pilots overshoot Minneapolis when they become distracted by a discussion of their schedules.

• 2009 – Agreement announced for sale of London Gatwick Airport from BAA Limited to Global Infrastructure Partners, to comply with Competition Commission requirements.

• 2009 – Azza Transport Flight 2241, a Boeing 707-330C, crashes on take off from Sharjah International Airport, United Arab Emirates; all 6 crew members are killed.

• 1989 – Tan-Sahsa Flight 414, a Boeing 727, crashes into a mountain known as Cerro de Hula near Tegucigalpa, Honduras due to pilot error; 127 of 146 on board die.

• 1986 – British Airways is offered for public sale by the British government

• 1982 – A Swiss Air Force Sud Alouette III crashed near Urnasch, six killed.

• 1978 – A man named Frederich Valentich mysteriously disappears while flying a Cessna 182L over the Bass Strait in Australia, after encountered an unidentified flying object. During six minutes after first asking air traffic control about other aircraft in the area, he continued to describe a craft of some sort that did not resemble an airplane and was moving all around him as he flew. His transmission ultimately ended with 17 seconds of metallic scraping sounds before cutting. No trace of him or his aircraft were ever found.

• 1971 – First flight of the Italair Pegaso

• 1970 – Caledonian Airways takes over British United Airways.

• 1967 – During a Laughlin AFB, Texas, airshow, USAF Thunderbirds No. 6, a North American F-100D-20-NA Super Sabre, 55-3520, piloted by Capt. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak, crashes, but he succeeds in ejecting as the plane breaks up. As McPeak pulls up to begin a series of vertical rolls, the wing center box fails at ~6.5 Gs, and the engine catches fire as the center fuel tank ruptures, dumping fuel into the engine bay. The pilot ejects and lands near to the crowd. This crash limited flying on all USAF Super Sabres to 4G. This was the first Thunderbird crash during a performance.

• 1966 – First flight of the Yakovlev Yak-40

• 1961 – First flight of the Breguet Atlantic

• 1961 – Vought F8U-1 Crusader, BuNo 145357, 'AB 12', of VF-11, arrestor hook and right landing gear broke during heavy landing on USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, with aircraft catching alight and going over port side. A series of nine photographs taken by Photographer's Mate L.J. Cera showed the crash sequence with pilot Lt. J.G Kryway ejecting in Martin-Baker Mk. F-5 seat just as the fighter leaves the deck. These images were widely distributed in the Navy to assure pilots that the seat could save them. Kryway escapes with minor injuries, being picked up by helicopter ten minutes later. Joe Baugher notes that date of 21 August 1961 has also been reported.

• 1954 – XA546, a Royal Air Force Gloster Javelin FAW.1 on a pre-delivery test flight, crashes into the Bristol Channel.

• 1950 – First flight of the Martin 4-0-4

• 1947 – First flight of the Leduc 0.10

• 1947 – First flight of the Northrop YB-49 jet-powered Flying Wing

• 1944 – A Japanese plane carrying a 200-pound (91 kg) bomb crashes into HMAS Australia off the coast of the Philippines.

• 1942 – A Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress, 40-3089, of the 5th Bomb Group/11th Bomb Group, with Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, America's top-scoring World War I ace (26 kills), aboard on a secret mission, is lost at sea in the central Pacific Ocean when the bomber goes off-course. After 24 days afloat, he and surviving crew are rescued by the U.S. Navy after having been given up for lost, discovered by OS2U Kingfisher crew.

• 1941 – First prototype Saro Lerwick, L7248, on strength with the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment, crashes into hill at Faslane, probably as a result of engine failure, with seven crew killed.

• 1937 – Nationalist aircraft sink the Republican destroyer Ciscar at Gijón.

• 1936 – Pan American World Airways initiates six-day-a-week passenger service between San Francisco, California, and Manila in the Philippine Islands via Honolulu, Hawaii.

• 1929 – The Colonial Flying Service and Scully Walton Ambulance Company organize the United States' first civilian air ambulance service.

• 1926 – British airship R.33 makes further parasite fighter tests, releasing two Gloster Grebes from 2,500 feet (760 m).

• 1921 – First flight of the Thomas-Morse MB-6, a later redesignated Thomas-Morse R-2.

October 22

• 2009 – Divi Divi Air Flight 014, a Britten-Norman Islander (PJ-SUN), with 10 on board, ditches in the Caribbean Sea off Bonaire due to engine failure, killing the pilot. The 9 passengers on board survived.

• 2009 – A United States Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopter while on a routine training exercise crashes onto the deck of the USNS Arctic off the coast of Fort Story, Virginia Beach, Virginia. The Black Hawk helicopter from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) was on a joint exercise with the United States Navy SEALs and was practising fast maritime interdiction by rappelling by rope to the ship's deck when the accident occurred killing 1 crew and injuring a further 8 service personnel.

• 2005 – Bellview Airlines Flight 210, a Boeing 737-200, crashes in central Nigeria, killing all 117 people on board.

• 1999 – A Royal Air Force BAE Systems Hawk of 100 Sqn based at RAF Leeming crashed near Shap, Cumbria killing the pilot and navigator.

• 1996 – Million Air Flight 406, a Boeing 707-323 C with 4 people aboard, crashes into a Dolorosa neighborhood ripping off rooftops and crashing in flames into a restaurant, killing the 4 aboard, 30 in the neighborhood and injuring 50 Ecuador.

• 1992 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-52 at 1:09:39:6433 p.m. EDT. Mission highlights: LAGEOS II, microgravity experiments.

• 1986 – WNBC traffic reporter Jane Dornacker is killed when the helicopter she is riding in stalls and crashes into the Hudson River.

• 1981 – The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority votes to de-certify the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization for its strike the previous August.

• 1981 – A United States Coast Guard HH-52A crashed near Mobile, Alabama, United States, two crew killed.

• 1968 – Apollo program – Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.

• 1963 – The 1963 BAC One-Eleven test crash occurred when a BAC One-Eleven (registration G-ASHG) took off from Wisley Airfield. There were seven crew on board the aircraft, the pilot was Mike Lithgow. The BAC One-Eleven was on a test flight to see how the aircraft assess stability and handling characteristics during the approach to, and recovery from the stall with a centre of gravity in varying positions. The aircraft was on its fifth stalling test. Then the flight crew put the BAC One-Eleven at a height of about 16000 feet and with 8 deg of flaps, the plane entered a stable stall. The aircraft began to descend at a high vertical speed, and in a substantially horizontal attitude and eventually struck the ground with very little forward speed. The aircraft broke up and caught fire, killing all seven crew on board. The crash site was near Chicklade, a small village in Wiltshire and near the A303 road.

• 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis – US President John F. Kennedy announces that American spy planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the island nation.

• 1958 – British European Airways Flight 142, a Vickers Viscount, collides with an Italian Air Force North American F-86 Sabre over Italy, all 31 on board died.

• 1956 – No. 401 Squadron (Auxiliary) was first of six auxiliary squadrons to be equipped with North American Sabre fighters.

• 1956 – An officer exchange program was inaugurated between the RAAF and the RCAF.

• 1955 – First flight of the Republic F-105 Thunderchief.

• 1953 – The 85th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Scott AFB, Illinois, suffers its first fatal North American F-86D Sabre loss when Maj. Yancey Williams crashes after takeoff from Runway 14 in F-86D-20-NA, 51-3029. Williams attempts to turn to the northwest, overshoots the approach to Runway 36, and then attempts a landing in a cornfield west of the base. He almost made it, but the Sabre strikes an electric transformer pole and explodes. The accident investigation shows that the Sabre had a hydraulic elevator control lock due to a misconnecting of hydraulic lines. Williams had been the squadron Material Officer.

• 1948 – On fifth flight of the second prototype McDonnell XF-85 Goblin parasite fighter, 45-524, McDonnell test pilot Edwin F. Schoch unhooks from trapeze carried on Boeing EB-29B Superfortress, 44-84111, named "Monstro", and for the first time retracts the small fighter's nose hook in flight. But when he extends it to reconnect with the mothership, buffeting over the open nose hook well (previously flown taped closed) causes the Goblin to be too unstable for reconnection. The hook is broken in the attempts, and Schoch belly lands on the dry lake at Muroc Air Force Base for the second time. This was the last flight of the second prototype.

• 1944 – Second of only two Bell XP-77-BE lightweight fighters completed out of a contract for six, 43-34916, crashes when pilot attempts an Immelmann turn resulting in an inverted spin during testing at the Air Proving Ground, Eglin Field, Florida. Pilot Barney E. Turner bails out.

• 1942 – (overnight) In support of Allied operations in North Africa, Royal Air Force Bomber Command mounts the first of 14 night attacks against targets in Italy, the last of which is flown on the night of December 11-12. The series of raids consists of night attacks on Genoa, Milan, and Turin and one daylight raid against Turin. Dispatching 1,752 sorties against Italian targets, it loses only 31 bombers (1.8 percent). During the same period, Bomber Command flies only five major night attacks against Germany.

• 1940 – S/L EA McNab, No. 1 Squadron, was awarded the DFC for services in the Battle of Britain.

• 1938 – Lieutenant Colonel Mario Pezzi of Italy sets a world altitude record of 17,083 m (56,047 feet) in a Caproni Ca.161bis. This record still stands for piston-engined aircraft.

• 1938 – The Heinkel He 100B V4 flies a number of times before its landing gear collapses while standing on the pad on this date. The aircraft will be rebuilt and returns to flying by March 1939.

• 1929 – 886 acres were assembled near Trenton, Ontario for a new RCAF Station to replace Camp Borden as the principal station. It includes a much needed seaplane facility.

• 1926 – Curtiss F6 C Hawk fighters of the United States Navy’s Fighter Squadron 2 (VF-2) surprise U. S. Navy capital ships sortieing from San Pedro Harbor, California, with a simulated dive-bombing attack, diving almost vertically from 12,000 feet (3,658 m). It generally is considered the birth of modern dive bombing.

• 1922 – 1st Lt. Harold Ross Harris (1897–1988) becomes the first member of the U.S. Army Air Service to save his life by parachute, when the Loening PW-2A, (probably AS-64388), he is testing out of McCook Field, Ohio, suffers vibration, loses part of left wing or aileron, so he parts company with the airframe, landing safely. Two sources gives the date as 20 October. McCook Field personnel create the "Caterpiller Club" for those whose lives are saved by parachute bail-out with Harris the plank-holding member.

• 1912 – Australian Flying Corps formed.

• 1911 – First aircraft to be used in war, an Italian Army Blériot XI, flies from Tripoli to Azizia to spy on Turkish positions.

• 1909 – Baroness Raymonde de Laroche flies in an fixed-wing aircraft. (See also September 1908).

• 1898 – Augustus Herring pilots a powered biplane based on Octave Chanute’s glider design.

• 1797, André-Jacques Garnerin jumps from a balloon from 3,200 feet over Monceau Park in Paris in a 23-foot-diameter parachute made of white canvas with a basket attached. He was declared "official French aeronaut of the state".

October 23

• 2009 – Slovakian airline Seagle Air ceases operations.
• 2009 – An Indian Air Force Mikoyan MiG-27 Flogger D/J flying from the Hasimara Air Force Base, Eastern Air Command crashes near New Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, India. The aircraft on a routine training exercise suffers a technical fault and an on-board engine fire shortly after take-off. After a successful ejection the pilot parachutes into a nearby tea estate and the aircraft crashes into a nearby river bank injuring two children.
• 2007 – Space Shuttle Discovery STS-120 launches at 15:38:19 UTC. Mission highlights (ISS assembly flight 10A): US Harmony module, crew rotation.
• 2003 – Concorde makes its final commercial flight from London Heathrow to New York JFK as Speedbird Concorde 1. It was to return the next day as Speedbird Concorde 2 to land in sequence with two other Concordes on Heathrow's runway 27 right.
• 2003 – AH-64D Apache 00-5219 (ex AH-64A 86-8972) from 1–101st Aviation Regiment crashes in Iraq while approaching to land at Kirkuk. The APU clutch failed and started a fire in flight. Aircraft landed safely but fuselage was almost completely burnt through.[1]
• 1987 – The last F-104 Starfighter is phased out of West German Luftwaffe service.
• 1977 – (Oct. 26-31) A Pan American World Airways Boeing 747SP circumnavigates the world over the two poles.
• 1972 – In Vietnam, Operation Linebacker concludes.
• 1967 – American aircraft attack Phúc Yên airfield, North Vietnam’s largest airfield, for the first time.
• 1967 – First flight of the Canadair CL-215
• 1996 – Fuerza Aérea Argentina Boeing 707-372C, LV-LGP, c/n 20077/728, on approach to Ezeiza-Ministro Pistarini Airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina, makes high approach without proper attention to pre-landing procedures, develops nose-down attitude at 900–1,000 metres, does not have time to correct, strikes ground hard about 750 metres short of runway 11, breaks up, and burns. Two of eight on board are killed.
• 1964 – U.S. Navy aircraft begin providing cover for Laotian government forces.
• 1962 – The Air Defence Command alerted due to the Cuban missile crisis.
• 1962 – In Operation Blue Moon, six U. S. Navy RF-8 Crusader photographic reconnaissance aircraft flying from Key West, Florida, conduct the first American low-level flights over Cuba, flying at 644 km/hr (400 mph) only a few hundred feet off the ground.
• 1962 – A USAF Boeing C-135B-BN Stratolifter, 62-4136, c/n 18476/C42, of the Military Air Transport Service, delivering a load of ammunition from McGuire AFB, New Jersey, to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, as part of the military response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, stalls and crashes short of the runway, killing all seven crew. This was the first cargo C-135 hull loss.
• 1957 – The British European Airways Vickers Viscount 802 G-AOJA crashes while landing in rain and low clouds at Nutts Corner Airport in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing all seven people on board.
• 1952 – First flight of the Hughes XH-17
• 1951 – Ten U.S. Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortresses attack an airfield in North Korea; three are shot down, four make emergency landings in South Korea, and three badly damaged aircraft return to Okinawa. It is one of the most deadly aerial combat engagements of the war and is referred to as Black Tuesday.
• 1945 – The last of 10,174 military DC-3/C-47 transport aircraft built by Douglas is handed over to the U.S. Army Air Forces.
• 1944 – First flight of the Nakajima G8N
• 1943 – First flight of the Vickers Windsor
• 1943 – 45 Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators raid Rabaul, escorted by 47 P-38 Lightnings.
• 1942 – American Airlines Flight 28, a Douglas DC-3, crashes near Palm Springs, California, after being struck by a U.S. Army Air Corps Lockheed B-34 bomber; all 12 aboard the airliner die, while the bomber lands safely with minor damage.
• 1939 – First flight of the Mitsubishi G4M
• 1934 – Francesco Agello sets a new airspeed record in the Macchi MC.72, of 709 km/h (440 mph).
• 1929 – The first North American transcontinental air service begins between New York City and Los Angeles, California.
• 1923 – First flight of the Handley Page Hyderabad
• 1911 – First use of aircraft in war as an Italian pilot takes off from Libya to observe Turkish army lines during the Turco-Italian War.
• 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont wins the Archdeacon prize as he flies his 14-bis aircraft at Bagatelle, France a distance of 60 m (197 ft).

October 24

• 2004 – Martinsville plane crash occurred on when a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 aircraft owned by Hendrick Motorsports crashed into Bull Mountain, seven miles from Blue Ridge Airport, Martinsville, Virginia. All ten aboard the plane were killed, among them members of the Hendrick family including John Hendrick, president of Hendrick Motorsports; and former NASCAR Busch Series driver and owner Ricky Hendrick.

• 2003 – Concorde makes its last scheduled commercial flight from New York JFK to London Heathrow, landing in sequence with 2 other Concorde's in a spectacular but very sad finale to a wonderful 27 years of service.

• 2000 First Flight: Lockheed Martin X-35

• 1994 – US Navy Grumman F-14A-95-GR Tomcat, BuNo 160390, 'NH 103', of VF-213 crashed on approach to the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, operating 40 miles (65 km.) off the Southern California coast, killing Lt. Kara Hultgreen, the first female Tomcat-qualified pilot in the Navy. RIO Lt. Matthew P. Klemish ejected and was rescued. Due to low-speed rolling turn, the ejections were on the edge of the seat capabilities, and Hultgreen's did not have time to fully sequence. Her body was recovered by a Navy salvage team, still strapped into her seat less than 100 yards (90 m.) from her F-14 on the seabed.

• 1984 – First flight of the PZL-130 Orlik

• 1980 – Soviet Air Force pilot Leonid Ivanov, selected for cosmonaut training in December 1978, is killed during a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-27 test flight.

• 1972 – As a peace gesture, the United States begins a seven-day halt on the bombing of North Vietnamese targets north of the 20th Parallel, but continues airstrikes at near-record levels against North Vietnamese supply lines south of the line.

• 1962 – aircraft carriers USS Enterprise, USS Independence, USS Essex, and USS Randolph take part in blockading Cuba.

• 1958 – RAF Avro Vulcan B.1 XA908 of 83 Squadron crashed into the residential neighbourhood of Grosse Pointe Park on the East side of Detroit, Michigan, USA after a complete electrical systems failure. The failure occurred at around 30,000 ft (9,100 m) and the backup system should have provided 20 minutes of emergency power to allow the aircraft to divert to Kellogg Airfield, Battle Creek, MI. Due to a short circuit in the service busbar, backup power only lasted three minutes before expiring and locking the aircraft controls. XA908 then went into a dive of between 60–70° before it crashed, leaving a 40 foot (13 m) crater in the ground, which was later excavated to 70 ft (21 m) deep in an unsuccessful attempt to find the cockpit of the aircraft. All six crew members were killed, including the co-pilot, who had ejected. The co-pilot’s ejector seat was found in Lake St Clair but his body was never found. Conflicting sources claim his body was found the following spring in the lake without a life vest. There were no reports of casualties on the ground.

• 1957 – The USAF starts the X-20 Dyna-Soar program. “Dynamic Soarer” was a United States Air Force program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintenance, and sabotage of enemy satellites. The program was canceled just after spacecraft construction had begun 1963.

• 1956 – The last Boeing-produced B-47 is delivered to the Air Force from Wichita. Douglas and Lockheed will continue to produce B-47 s for several more months.

• 1955 – Eleventh of 13 North American X-10s, GM-52-4, c/n 11, on Navaho X-10 flight number 17, out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, an engine problem results in a mission abort. After autolanding the nose wheel develops a shimmy, the vehicle runs off the skid strip, catches fire, and is destroyed.

• 1953 – First flight of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger

• 1947 – First flight of the Grumman HU-16 Albatross

• 1947 – United Airlines Flight 608, a Douglas DC-6, crashes near Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah, when fire caused by a design flaw destroys the aircraft; all 52 on board die in the first hull loss of the DC-6.

• 1945 – Using a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, American Overseas Airlines begins the first scheduled commercial transatlantic airline service by a landplane, operating between New York City and London. Since the new London-Heathrow airport is not yet available for commercial operations, AOA uses Bournemouth-Hurn Airport.

• 1944 – The first bombing mission of the 21st Bomber Command against Japan involves 88 Boeing B-29 s in the first heavy bomb strike on Tokyo.

• 1944 – The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, composed of four distinct major fleet actions, begins. In the morning, a Japanese bomber fatally damages the U. S. light aircraft carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23), which sinks in the afternoon. The first major fleet action, the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, takes place in the afternoon, with heavy strikes by Task Force 38 carrier aircraft against a Japanese task force in the Sibuyan Sea sinking the battleship Musashi and badly damaging the heavy cruiser Myōkō in exchange for the loss of 18 U. S. aircraft.

• 1943 – 62 Fifth Air Force B-25 Mitchells raid Rabaul, escorted by 54 P-38 Lightnings.

• 1940 – The Luftwaffe’s I. Gruppe, Nachtjagdgeschwader 2, scores the first aerial victory by a German night intruder aircraft during World War II with a kill over England.

• 1940 – The Regia Aeronautica’s (Italian Royal Air Force’s) Corpo Aereo Italiano (Italian Air Corps) launches its first bombing raid over England, using 18 Fiat BR.20 bombers.

• 1937 – During engine start at an airfield on Saishuto Island (now Cheju Do) off of the southern coast of South Korea, a Hirosho G2H1 (Hiro Navy Type 95 Twin-engined Land-based Attacker) catches fire and soon explodes. Fire spreads to other G2Hs, armed with bombs, destroying four and damaging a fifth. Only eight G2H1s were built, six by Hirosho and two by Mitsubishi, the Imperial Japanese Navy deciding to standardize on the slightly smaller Mitsubishi G3M Navy Type 96 twin-engined land-based bomber, Allied codename "Nell".

• 1919 – The first trio-mortored airliner was the Curtiss Eagle which carried eight passengers from Garden City, Long Island, New York, to Washington, D. C.

• 1919 – Frank Piasecki is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Piasecki becomes the second man in the United States to fly a helicopter in 1943. Piasecki's company develops many of the world's most successful tandem rotor helicopters including the H-21 Shawnee, CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-47 Chinook.

• 1912 – Harry Hawker wins the British Empire Michelin Cup for endurance. He flies for over 8 hours in a Burgess-Wright airplane. Harry Hawker went on to co-found Hawker Aircraft, the firm that would later be responsible for a long series of successful military aircraft, including the Fury, Sea Fury, Hurricane, Hunter and Harrier. Hawker Aircraft is now part of Raytheon Inc. along with Beachcraft aircraft.

• 1911 – Orville Wright soars in a glider 9 min and 45 seconds over dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

October 25

• 2012 – Independent United Nations human rights researcher Ben Emmerson announces plans to launch an investigation into unmanned aerial vehicle strikes and other targeted assassinations by governments that kill or injure civilians.[1]
• 2009 – CSA Czech Airlines discontinues all long-haul routes from Prague, including New York and Toronto
• 2007 – The first Airbus A380 passenger flight, operating for Singapore Airlines, with flight number SQ380, flying scheduled service between Singapore and Sydney, Australia.
• 2006 – The first production CH-47 F Chinook helicopter successfully completes its first flight.
• 2006 – (25-26) Oasis Hong Kong Airlines originally began service with initial service to London-Gatwick on the 25th but due to problems with rights flying over Russia, the initial flight OHK 700/O8 700 was delayed to the 26th.
• 2003 – UH-60L Black Hawk 96-26653 From B co. 3-158 Avn. Regt. of the 12th Avn. BDE crashes and burns out after being hit by an SA-7 missile near Tikrit, 1 soldier injured. This reference story is incorrect. From the Plt. Sgt. that maintained the aircraft. P.O.C. commander the aircraft belonged to, CPT Scott Halter.[2]
• 2000 – A Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-18 crashes near Batumi, Georgia killing all 86 people on board.
• 1999 – A Learjet 35 flying between Orlando, Florida and Dallas crashed after flying for almost four hours and 1,500 miles (2,400 km), until it ran out of fuel. Among the six people on board were golf star Payne Stewart and Bruce Borland.
• 1994 – First flight of the Bell 430
• 1994 – U. S. Navy Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen, the first female aircraft carrier-based fighter pilot, is killed off San Diego, California, in the crash of an F-14 Tomcat fighter she is piloting on final approach to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72).
• 1991 – First flight of the Airbus A340
• 1986 – Piedmont Airlines Flight 467, a Boeing 737, overruns the runway at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport; there are no fatalities on board, but the aircraft is written off
• 1985 – Emirates operates its first revenue flight, from Dubai to Karachi using an Airbus A300 leased from Pakistan International Airlines.
• 1982 – Canadian Armed Forces accepted the first two CF-18 Hornet fighter aircraft at CFB Uplands.
• 1979 – The Air Force takes delivery of the last U. S.-built McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. It is the 5,057 Phantom to roll out from the plant at St. Louis, Mo., since May 1958.
• 1976 – Lockheed SR-71A, 61-7965, Article 2016, lost near Lovelock, Nevada during night training sortie following INS platform failure. Pilot St. Martin and RSO Carnochan eject safely.
• 1969 – Two United States Air Force Academy faculty[clarification needed] are killed when their Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star crashed and burned in a meadow near the main runway while landing at Peterson Field, Colorado. Pilot was Maj. Donald J. Usry, 32, of the academy faculty, and back-seater was Capt. Martin Bezyack, of the academy's athletic department.
• 1968 – Northeast Airlines Flight 946, a Fairchild 227, crashes near Etna, New Hampshire, killing 32 passengers and crew.
• 1961 – Sikorsky HSS-1N Seabat, BuNo 149132, c/n 58-1374, coded '139', of the Koninklijke Marine, ditches at Moray Firth, near Scotland.
• 1960 – National Aviation Museum was opened at Uplands Airport by Hon J. Angus MacLean, acting on behalf of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.
• 1960 – First flight of the Boeing Vertol Model 107, a predecessor to the CH-46 Sea Knight.
• 1956 – First (of two) Bell XV-3s, 54-147, first flown 11 August 1955, crashes this date when pilot Dick Stansbury blacks out due to extremely high cockpit vibrations when the rotor shafts are moved 17 degrees forward from vertical. Pilot is seriously injured and airframe is damaged beyond repair. Design was initially designated XH-33.
• 1955 – First flight of the Saab 35 Draken
• 1955 – Boeing WB-29A-35-BN Superfortress, 44-61600, c/n 11077, of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, out of RAF Burtonwood, experiences multiple problems including failed fuel feed pump, head winds, while returning from "Falcon" mission to polar region; pilot orders bail out of crew shortly before midnight as fuel exhaustion becomes critical, all eleven survive, with only one minor injury. Aircraft comes down near Kirby Lonsdale, Lancashire, England, burns, only rear fuselage and tail remaining intact.
• 1951 – Japan Airlines flies its first flights, using three Northwest Airlines Martin 2-0-2 aircraft, flown by Northwest crews.
• 1944 – The first kamikaze mission is carried out, with aircraft of the 201st Kokutai sinking the carrier USS St Lo.
• 1943 – 61 Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators raid Rabaul, escorted by 50 P-38 Lightnings. The Fifth Air Force’s commander, Major General George Kenney, claims 175 Japanese aircraft destroyed in the raids of October 23-25; the Japanese admit a loss of nine of their planes shot down and 25 destroyed on the ground.
• 1940 – F/L GR McGregor and F/O BD Russel, No. 1 Squadron, were awarded the DFC for services in the Battle of Britain.
• 1938 – 1938 Kyeema crash, an Australian National Airways Douglas DC-2 crashes in heavy fog into Mount Dandenong in Victoria, Australia, killing all 18 people on board.
• 1930 – TWA (originally "Transcontinental and Western Air") begins the first regular passenger flights between New York and Los Angeles.
• 1922 – The Douglas Co. begins its association with the Army Air Service when it receives a memo requesting information on a modified version of the DT-2.

October 26

• 2011 – All Nippon Airways flies the first commercial flight of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, from Tokyo to Hong Kong.[1]

• 2011 – In response to an ongoing industrial dispute with three labour unions, all Qantas aircraft are grounded by Qantas chief executive officer Alan Joyce.[2]

• 2009 – S-Air Flight 9607, a BAe 125, registration RA-02807, crashes on approach to Minsk International Airport. All three crew and both passengers are killed.

• 2008 – Qatar Airways launches daily nonstop flights between Doha and New York-JFK using Boeing 777-300ER.

• 2007 – First flight of the Embraer Lineage 1000

• 2007 – Philippine Airlines Flight 475, an Airbus A320-214, overruns the runway on landing at Bancasi Airport in Butuan City, the Philippines, and is destroyed when it plows into the tropical rainforest beyond the end of the runway. All 154 people on board survive.

• 2006 – 2006 Falsterbo Swedish Coast Guard crash was the crash of a CASA C-212 Aviocar turboprop airplane belonging to the Swedish Coast Guard in Falsterbo Canal, Sweden.

• 1993 – China Eastern Airlines Flight 5398, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, overruns the runway at Fuzhou Changle International Airport in heavy weather, killing 2 of 80 on board; pilot error is blamed.

• 1993 – ValuJet Airlines begins operations.

• 1989 – China Airlines Flight 204, a Boeing 737, crashes into the Chiashan mountain range after takeoff from Hualien Airport due to pilot error; all 54 on board perish.

• 1983 – Pan Am celebrates the 25th anniversary of their first Boeing 707 with a 707 flight from JFK International Airport to Paris.

• 1982 – A West German Air Force Lockheed F-104G Starfighter crashed in the Netherlands, pilot killed.

• 1978 – A USAF LTV A-7D-6-CV Corsair II, 69-6240, of the 355th TFW, on flight from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, crashes on approach to Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, coming down in street between University of Arizona buildings and Mansfield Junior High School in Tucson, killing driver of auto struck by the fighter, and injuring at least six other civilians. Pilot Capt. Frederick Ashler, 28, ejected safely while passing over the university campus.

• 1973 – First flight of the Dassault-Breguet/Dornier Alpha Jet

• 1972 – Igor Sikorsky dies.

• 1968 – First flight of the Embraer EMB 110 Bandeirante

• 1967 – First flight of the BAC Strikemaster

• 1966 – A fire in a flare locker in Hangar Bay One of the USS Oriskany (CVA-34) beginning at 0728 hrs. spreads through the hangar deck and to the flight deck. Before the fires are extinguished two Kaman SH-2 Seasprite helicopters are lost, Douglas A-4E Skyhawk, BuNo 151075, is destroyed, and three others are damaged, as are Hangar Bays One and Two, the forward officer quarters and catapults, and 44 crew are killed.

• 1962 – The last Boeing B-52 off the production line is delivered to the US Air Force.

• 1958 – The first commercial flight by a Boeing 707 jet airliner takes place, on Pan American World Airways transatlantic service from New York City to Paris.

• 1958 – Snowy Mountains Project worker Tom Sonter accidentally discovers the wreckage of the Australian National Airways Avro 618 Ten Southern Cloud, which had disappeared without trace in bad weather over the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, with the loss of all eight people on board on March 21, 1931, in Australia‘s first airline disaster.

• 1958 – North American F-86L Sabre, 53-0569, of the 330th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Stewart AFB, New York, crashes W of that base while on approach in a snow storm, killing pilot Lt. Gary W. Crane.

• 1956 – Royal Canadian Navy accepted the first seven of 100 Grumman Tracker aircraft at Downsview, Ontario.

• 1956 – A USAF Fairchild C-119G-FA Flying Boxcar, 51-8026A, c/n 10769, of the 61st Troop Carrier Squadron, 314th Troop Carrier Wing, Tactical Air Command, Sewart Air Force Base, Tennessee, on a cargo airlift mission to Olmsted Air Force Base, Pennsylvania, crashes 7 miles N of Newburg, Pennsylvania at ~1515 hrs. ET, killing four crew. The weather at Olmsted was fluctuating rapidly with rain and fog, and at 1400 hrs. the pilot reported a missed approach to the field. After being cleared to altitude over the Lancaster beacon the conditions at Olmsted improved to above minimums and the pilot requested another approach. At 1506 Eastern he was cleared for a straight-in approach from New Kingston Fan Marker to Olmsted. At 1509 he reported leaving the New Kingston Fan Marker inbound and at 1511 he reported leaving 3,000 feet. The aircraft crashed in mountainous terrain 22.5 nm W of the Kingston Fan Marker. KWF are 1st Lt. Robert Siegfried Hantsch, pilot, Walter Beverly Gordon, Jr., co-pilot, T/Sgt. Marvin W. Seigler, engineer, and 1st Lt. Gracye E. Young, of the 4457th USAF Hospital, Sewart AFB.

• 1952 – A BOAC Comet is badly damaged in an accident during take-off from Rome.

• 1947 – (October 26-November 7) Rhulin A. Thomas makes the first solo coast-to-coast flight by a deaf pilot. (Calbraith Perry Rodgers was an earlier deaf pilot who flew coast-to-coast in 1911, but was supported by a team on the ground.)

• 1944 – The highest-scoring Japanese ace in history, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, is killed when the Nakajima Ki-49 (Allied reporting name “Helen”) transport aircraft in which he is riding as a passenger is shot down by a U. S. Navy F6 F Hellcat fighter over Calapan, Mindoro Island, in the Philippine Islands. His score stands at at least 87—and possibly over 100—victories at the time of his death.

• 1944 – 44 U. S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator and B-25 Mitchell bombers of the Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces sink the Japanese light cruiser Abukuma southwest of Negros, and 253 carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 sink the Japanese light cruiser Noshiro off Batbatan Island.

• 1944 – Sole Platt-LePage XR-1A helicopter, 42-6581, is damaged in an accident at Wright Field, Ohio, due to the failure of a pinion bearing support in the starboard rotor hub and is shipped back to the manufacturer. It will be declared surplus following the end of World War II.

• 1944 – WASP pilot Gertrude Tompkins Silver of the 601st Ferrying Squadron, 5th Ferrying Group, Love Field, Dallas, Texas, departs Mines Field, Los Angeles, California, in North American P-51D-15-NA Mustang, 44-15669, at 1600 hrs PWT, headed for the East Coast. She took off into the wind, into an offshore fog bank, and was expected that night at Palm Springs. She never arrived. Due to a paperwork foul-up, a search did not get under way for several days, and while the eventual search of land and sea was massive, it failed to find a trace of Silver or her plane. She is the only missing WASP pilot. She had married Sgt. Henry Silver one month before her disappearance.

• 1943 – First flight of the Dornier Do 335 V1 CP+UA

• 1943 – F/L RM Aldwinckle and crew in a Consolidated Liberator of No. 10 Squadron sank the German submarine U-420 in the North Atlantic.

• 1942 – An aircraft carrier action takes place northeast of the Solomon Islands during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. U. S. Navy carrier aircraft badly damage the Japanese aircraft carriers Shōkaku and Zuihō, while Japanese carrier aircraft fatally damage the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8). The abandoned Hornet is finished off by Japanese destroyers early the next morning becoming the only U. S. fleet carrier ever to be sunk by enemy surface ships.

• 1940 – First flight of the North American P-51 Mustang

• 1931 – First flight of the de Havilland Tiger Moth prototype G-ABRC

• 1925 – Schneider Trophy race flown at Baltimore, USA. Won by Jimmy Doolittle (United States) in a Curtiss R3C at 374.2 km/h (232.6 mph).

• 1922 – The first landing is made on USS Langley by Lt Cdr Geoffrey DeChevalier in an Aeromarine 39.

• 1909 – Marie Marvingt pilots a balloon across the North Sea and the English Channel from Europe to England.

• 1907 – Henry Farman sets a world powered heavier-than-air distance record of 771 m (2,530 ft).

October 27

• 1993 – Widerøe Flight 744, a De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter, crashes in Overhalla, Norway on approach to Namsos Airport, killing both pilots and four passengers; the crash is also known as the Namsos Accident.

• 1989 – Introduction: ATR 72

• 1988 – First flight of the ATR 72

• 1982 – The first CF 18 Hornet arrived to 410 Squadron OTU CFB Cold Lake.

• 1979 – First flight of the Panavia Tornado ADV

• 1976 – General Dynamics F-111E-CF, 67-0116, c/n A1-161 / E-2, of the 3246th Test Wing, Armament Development and Test Center, one of two assigned to the base, crashed at Eglin AFB, Florida, upon return from a test mission. Crew, pilot Capt. Douglas A. Joyce, and Capt. Richard Mullane, deployed crew escape module safely and were uninjured.

• 1965 – A raid by Viet Cong sappers against the U. S. Marine Corps‘s Marble Mountain Air Facility in South Vietnam destroys 13 UH-1E and six UH-34 helicopters and damages four UH-1 Es and 26 UH-34 s.

• 1962 – The plane of Enrico Mattei, Italian industry’s most relevant figure, crashes in mysterious circumstances.

• 1962 – A USAF Boeing RB-47H-BW Stratojet, 53-6248, of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, experienced loss of thrust and crashed at Kindley AFB, Bermuda, killing all four crew, aircraft commander Maj. William A. Britton, copilot 1st Lt. Holt J. Rasmussen, navigator Capt. Robert A. Constable, and observer Capt. Robert C. Dennis. Cause was contaminated water-alcohol. This aircraft had spotted the Soviet freighter Grozny with missiles bound for Cuba on its deck on 26 September.

• 1962 – Major Rudolf Anderson, a Greenville, South Carolina native and 1948 graduate from Clemson University's cadet corps and pilot with the 4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing is tasked with an overflight of Cuba on mission 3128, in a CIA Lockheed U-2F spy plane, remarked with USAF insignia, to take photos of the Soviet SS-4 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and SS-5 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBMs) build-ups. Anderson had first qualified on the U-2 type on 3 September 1957. This would be his sixth Cuban overflight. He departed McCoy AFB, Florida at 0909 hrs ET. Contrary to Moscow orders to not engage reconnaissance flights, a single Soviet-manned SA-2 missile battery at Banes fired at Anderson's high-flying U-2F, 56-6676, (Article 343), at 1021 hrs, Havana time (1121 hrs. ET). Although not a direct hit, several pieces of shrapnel punctured the canopy and the pilot's partial pressure suit and helmet, resulting in Anderson's immediate death. A censored Central Intelligence Agency document dated 28 October 1962, 0200 hours, states "The loss of the U-2 over Banes was probably caused by intercept by an SA-2 from the Banes site, or pilot hypoxia, with the former appearing more likely on the basis of present information." Actually, it was both.

• 1961 – The first Saturn I heavy launch vehicle (SA-1) lifted off from Launch Complex 34 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. This was a test of the first stage, only. The upper stages were dummies.

• 1960 – Air Mali (1960–1985) is established

• 1959 – First flight of the Myasishchev M-50

• 1959 – Convair YB-58-1-CF Hustler, 55-0669, c/n 10, crashes 7 miles (11 km) W of Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Convair pilot Everett L. Wheeler, and Convair flight engineer Michael F. Keller survive; Convair flight engineer Harry N. Blosser killed. Accident cause was loss of control during normal flight.

• 1957 – Pioneering Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Caproni dies.

• 1952 – An Argentine Air Force Vickers VC.1 Viking T-64 crashed at Morón Air Base.

• 1950 – A North American AJ-1 Savage, BuNo 124163, of VC-5, fails to climb out on launch from the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, and goes into the water directly off the bow, reportedly off of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Plane Commander was LCDR Dave Purdon, the B/N was LTJG Ed Decker, and the Third Crewman was Chief Edward R. Barrett. Only Decker escapes from the wreckage with minor injuries to be rescued by the plane guard helicopter. Cause was possibly accidental engagement of the flight control gust locks. Newsreel footage of this accident was released through Movietone News.

• 1949 – Air France Lockheed Constellation crashes in the Azores. 48 die including French boxing star Marcel Cerdan and the young concert violinist, Ginette Neveu.

• 1944 – First flight of the Bristol Buckmaster

• 1943 – During U. S. landings in the Treasury Islands, 25 Japanese Aichi D3A (“Val”) dive bombers attack U. S. ships offshore, damaging a destroyer in exchange for the loss of 12 aircraft.

• 1941 – Victor Talalikhin, the Soviet Union’s first major air hero of World War II, is killed in action during a dogfight with German aircraft.

• 1940 – The first 37 AOS graduates passed and were awarded badges at Trenton.

• 1931 – Entered Service: USS Akron (ZRS-4) with the United States Navy

• 1931 – The Detroit Aircraft Corporation files for bankruptcy. Eventually, the Lockheed portion of the company is bought out of receivership.

• 1926 – First flight of the Blériot 165

• 1918 – Col. William Barker shoots down a German plane over the front lines, then is attacked by a large formation of enemy aircraft. He sends three more German aircraft to the ground, while suffering serious gunshot wounds to his legs and elbow; crash landing near the Allied lines. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.

• 1917 – Arthur Rhys Davids, English WWI fighter pilot, dies (b. 1897). Davids was credited with having brought down Germany’s Werner Voss on 23 September 1917, in one of the most famous dogfights of World War I.

• 1909 – Mrs. Ralph van Denman flies for four minutes with Wilbur Wright at College Park, Maryland, becoming the U. S.’s first female passenger. [1]

October 28

• 2012 – Syrian Air Force aircraft strike rebel-held areas in the eastern Damascus suburbs of Arbeen, Harasta, and Zamalka.[1]

• 2010 – A Eurocopter AS350 helicopter crashed in Antarctica, killing four people.

• 2006 – Continental Airlines Flight 1883, a Boeing 757-224 with 154 people on board, mistakenly lands on a taxiway instead of a runway at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey. It rolls to a stop without incident.

• 1998 – An Air China (Mainland China) jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan.

• 1990 – When the Iraqi tanker Amuriyah refuses to stop for inspection by Coalition warships enforcing an embargo against Iraq, the pursuit of her by Coalition forces includes low-level flyovers by U. S. Navy aircraft carrier-based F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets.

• 1983 – Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR.1, XV742, one of four Harriers displayed at the 1968 SBAC show at Farnborough, then loaned to the U.S. Marine Corps for trials in 1971, returned to the RAF and converted to GR.3 standard in 1982, crashes this date on Holbeach range, UK, while serving with No. 233 OCU.

• 1982 – The last Air France Boeing 707 service, from Tunis to Paris.

• 1977 – 28-30 – A Pan Am Boeing 747SP circumnavigates the world over the two poles

• 1974 – First flight of the Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard

• 1972 – First flight of the Airbus A300

• 1962 – First flight of the Westland Wasp

• 1960 – RCAF 435 Squadron accepted its first CC-130 B Hercules transport aircraft at Uplands.

• 1958 – Canadair C-5 of the RCAF, piloted by W/C WK Carr and crew, flew Prime Minister Diefenbaker on a round-the-world tour.

• 1958 – The first Sabre fives are handed over to RCAF Auxiliary squadrons, with 401 the first unit to convert.

• 1957 – The first production Boeing Model 707-120 jet rolls out.

• 1954 – First flight of the North American FJ-4 Fury

• 1952 – The Douglas XA3D-1 (A-3) Skywarrior makes its first flight.

• 1949 – An Air France Lockheed Constellation crashes into a mountain on São Miguel Island, Azores, Portugal, killing all 48 people on board, including boxer Marcel Cerdan and violinist Ginette Neveu

• 1945 – First flight of the LWD Szpak

• 1944 – The United States Army Air Forces’ Twentieth Air Force carries out its first strike from its new bases in the Mariana Islands, a raid by 14 Saipan-based B-29 Superfortresses against Truk Atoll. It is the first B-29 combat mission from the Marianas.

• 1938 – Lieutenant Colonel Ramón Franco, commander of Spanish Nationalist air forces in the Balearic Islands, dies when his seaplane crashes off Pollença, Majorca, during an attempt to bomb Republican-held Valencia.

• 1936 – First flight of the Dornier Do 19

• 1936 – Tupolev TB-3-4AM-34FRN with A. B. Yumashev of the Soviet Union at the controls sets a payload-to-altitude record of 5,000 kg (11,023 lb) to 8,980 m (29,462 feet).

• 1927 – The Meacham Field in Key West, Florida was the location of the first air passenger international arrivals building.

• 1916 – Undercarriage of German fighter pilot Erwin Böhme, diving on a British fighter, strikes upper wing of ace Oswald Boelcke's Albatros D.II, also pursuing the same target. Fabric peels loose, aircraft disappears into cloud - when it emerges, the top wing is gone. Boelcke makes relatively "soft" landing, but as he habitually flew without a helmet, and in haste to take off had not properly secured his seatbelt, he was killed on impact. He was 25, and was credited with 40 victories. Jasta 2 is officially named "Jasta Boelcke" on 17 December 1916 in honour of its former commander.

• 1914 – Aviators in Melbourne form an Australian Aero Club.

• 1891 – Ormer Locklear, American movie stunt pilot is born (d. 1920).

October 29

• 2010 – Cargo planes bomb plot: A terrorist plot to send bombs by air freight from Yemen to the United States via the United Kingdom is uncovered.

• 2009 – A United States Coast Guard Lockheed C-130H-7 Hercules, USCG 1705, c/n 4993, from USCG Air Station Sacramento, California, collides with a U.S. Marine Corps Bell AH-1 SuperCobra helicopter, BuNo 164596, of HMLA-469, 15 miles (24 km) east of San Clemente Island, off of the coast of Southern California, killing all seven Coast Guard aircrew and both Marine aircrew.

• 2009 – A Força Aérea Brasileira Cessna 208 (C-98/U-27 Caravan 1) FAB-2725 flying from Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre to Tabatinga crash lands in the Ituí River a small tributary of the Rio Javari, Amazonas State. The twin-engined turboprop aircraft of the 7º Esquadrão de Transporte Aéreo from Base Aérea de Manaus was transporting officials from Brazilian Ministry of Health participating in a vaccination programme when the aircraft crashed landed between the Amazonian villages of Aurelius and New River. The aircraft was later found by indigenous villagers of the region discovering 9 survivors and 2 dead crew.

• 2008 – The United States Department of Justice approves Delta Air Lines’ purchase of Northwest Airlines and the companies formally begin merging their operations.

• 2006 – ADC Airlines Flight 53, a Boeing 737-200, crashes near Abuja, Nigeria, killing 96 of the 105 people on board.

• 2005 – Ghana International Airlines launched with inaugural flight from Accra to London.

• 1998 – While en route from Adana to Ankara, a Turkish Airlines flight with a crew of 6 and 33 passengers is hijacked by a Kurdish militant who orders the pilot to fly to Switzerland. The plane instead lands in Ankara after the pilot tricked the hijacker into thinking that he was landing in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to refuel.

• 1998 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-95 at 2:19:34 pm EST. Mission highlights: SPACEHAB; John Glenn flies again.

• 1996 – First flight of the PZL SW-4

• 1994 – An Aeronika Antonov An-12 A crashes on approach to Ust-Ilimsk Kaluga in central Russia, killing 21.

• 1992 – A U.S. Air Force MH-60G Pave Hawk crashed near Antelope Island, Utah, killing five US Army Rangers and seven Air Force Special Operations Airmen. Only the commanding pilot survived.

• 1991 – A Royal Australian Air Force Boeing 707-368C, A20-103, c.n 21103/905, stalled and crashed into the sea near RAAF Base East Sale, Victoria, Australia, killing all five crew. The crash was attributed to a simulation of asymmetric flight resulting in a sudden and violent departure from controlled flight.

• 1989 – U.S. Navy North American T-2C Buckeye, BuNo 158876, of VT-19, crashes into Vultures' Row on the island of training carrier USS Lexington during a wave-off approach, operating in the Gulf of Mexico 22 miles S of NAS Pensacola, Florida, killing five and injuring 20. Killed were the student pilot, three seamen, and a civilian employee of the Navy. This was the last aviation accident on the Lady Lex before her retirement to a museum ship at Corpus Christi, Texas Killed in the crash were the pilot, Ensign Steven E. Pontell, 23, Columbia, Maryland, who was alone in the two-seat trainer; Lexington crewmen Petty Officer 3rd Class Burnett Kilgore Jr., 19, Holly Springs, Mississippi; Petty Officer 3rd Class Timmy L. Garroutte, 30, Memphis, Tennessee; Airman Lisa L. Mayo, 25, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and a civilian employee of DynCorp who had the contract to maintain Navy aircraft, Byron Gervis Courvelle, 32, Meridian, Mississippi.

• 1981 – A U.S. Navy Grumman EA-6B Prowler, BuNo 159582, 'AC-604', of VAQ-138, from NAS Whidbey Island, Washington, crashes at 0850 hrs. in a rural field near Virginia Beach, Virginia, killing three crew. Wreckage sprayed onto nearby houses, a barn and a stable with 35 horses, but no fires were sparked and there were no ground injuries. The Prowler had departed NAS Norfolk with three other aircraft at 0832 hrs., bound for the USS John F. Kennedy, off the Virginia coast before crashing three miles from NAS Oceana. Navy officials said they did not know if the pilot was trying for Oceana.

• 1980 – Operation Credible Sport: A USAF Lockheed YMC-130H Hercules, 74-1683, c/n 4658, outfitted with experimental JATO rockets for Operation Credible Sport, a planned second attempt to rescue American hostages held by Iran, is destroyed when the rockets misfire during a test landing at Wagner Field, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, USA. All crew members survive, but the rescue operation is deemed excessively risky and is cancelled.

• 1971 – A USAF Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star crashes near Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, both crew ejecting before the airframe impacted in a sugar cane field; one seriously injured, one with minor injuries.

• 1966 – A burning North American F-86H Sabre fighter of the 174th Tactical Fighter Group, New York Air National Guard, based at Syracuse, New York, crashes into two house trailers in a trailer park next to Route 28, Poland, New York, NE of Utica, critically burning Mrs. Alberta Eaton, a 19-year-old pregnant woman, in one dwelling, who is blown 15 feet from the structure by the impact blast. She is transported to hospital with first and second-degree burns, state police reported. The second trailer was unoccupied at the time of the crash. The Sabre pilot, Capt. William R. Kershlis, Jr., 34, of Ithaca, who ejected safely, landing NE of Poland, telephoned his base at Syracuse to report that he seemed to be alright.

• 1963 – The first Canadair CL-41 Tutor jet trainer entered RCAF service.

• 1960 – The Cal Poly football team plane crash: a chartered Curtiss C-46 crashes on take-off at the Toledo Express Airport in Toledo, Ohio with the loss of twenty-two people including sixteen players on the California Polytechnic State University football team.

• 1959 – First flight of the Antonov An-24

• 1957 – Boeing KC-97G-27-BO Stratotanker, 52-2711, c/n 16742, of the 509th Bomb Wing, out of Walker AFB, New Mexico, crashes 35 miles north of Flagstaff, Arizona, while on nine-hour low-level survey flight to determine minimum altitude restrictions for B-47 training routes. Aircraft was seen over Gray Mountain, Arizona, at altitude of 60 feet shortly after 0830 hrs., and then heard striking a cloud-shrouded cliff face, killing 16 crew and strewing wreckage for 200 yards along mountainside.

• 1956 – Operation Kadesh, an Israeli operation to occupy the Sinai Peninsula, begins with strikes by Israeli Air Force F-51 Mustangs against Egyptian forces and facilities throughout the Sinai and the parachute drop by Douglas DC-3s of a 400-man Israeli battalion near the Sinai’s Mitla Pass, where French aircraft drop supplies to them by parachute. Four Israeli Mustangs severely disrupt Egyptian command and control in the Sinai by cutting all overhead telephone lines there with their wings and propellers.

• 1956 – (October 29-November 1) Egyptian Air Force de Havilland Vampires and Gloster Meteors escorted by MiG-15 s attack Israeli ground forces in the Sinai, while Israeli Air Force Dassault Mystère IV fighters escort Israeli transport aircraft. The Israelis shoot down between seven and nine Egyptian aircraft in exchange for one of their own.

• 1954 – An Boeing RB-47E-30-BW Stratojet, 52-770, of the 90th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing based at Forbes AFB, Kansas, goes out of control at ~10,000 feet and plunges vertically to the ground SW of Olathe, Kansas, killing three of four crew. The pilot, Capt. Norman Palmer, 32, of Rochester, Indiana, ejected and survived, although with injuries. He suffered fractures of the right arm and shoulder after parachuting from low altitude. "A witness, Dr. Jack Flickinger of Baldwin, Kansas, said the burning craft went into a vertical dive at 1,000 to 2,000 feet and plunged straight into the ground." He said that a hole 40 feet deep was blasted on impact with wreckage thrown 500 yards in all directions. Dead were Capt. Hassel O. Green, 32, instructor-pilot, of Newsite, Mississippi; Capt. George H. Miller, 33, co-pilot, of Burbank, California; and Capt. Arthur F. Bouton, Jr., 31, observer, of Little Rock, Arkansas. Lt. Allen Oppegard, Air Information Services officer at the Naval Air Station Olathe, said the pilot told medical personnel from the base that the plane went out of control at about 10,000 feet but that he did not know why. The pilot said he did not recall how he got out of the aircraft.

• 1953 – BCPA Flight 304, a Douglas DC-6 B, crashes into King's Mountain, southeast of Half Moon Bay, California, on its approach to San Francisco International Airport, killing all 11 passengers, including American pianist William Kapell, and a crew of eight.

• 1953 – Flying a North American YF-100 A Super Sabre, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Frank K. “Speedy Pete” Everest sets a world speed record of 1,215.298 kilometers per hour (755.151 miles per hour).

• 1944 – Carrier aircraft of U.S. Navy Task Group 38.2 raid Japanese airfields around Manila, claiming 71 Japanese aircraft shot down in air-to-air combat and 13 destroyed on the ground in exchange for the loss of 11 planes.

• 1943 – Between 37 and 41 Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators, escorted by between 53 and 75 P-38 Lightnings, drop 115 tons (104,327 kg) of bombs on Vunakanau airfield at Rabaul, claiming 45 Japanese aircraft shot down or destroyed on the ground; the Japanese admit a loss of seven of their planes shot down and three destroyed on the ground.

• 1936 – Soviet aircraft appear in combat for the first time in Spanish Civil War as Alcantarilla-based Tupolev SB-2 bombers with Soviet pilots and Spanish bombardiers and gunners bomb Seville in support of Republican forces. On the same day, Nationalist forces begin a heavy bombing campaign against Madrid.

• 1918 – The Danish airline Det Danske Luftfartselskab, the oldest airline that still exists, is founded.

• 1917 – Lt. Heinrich Gontermann, known as the Balloon Strafer, receives fatal injuries when the Fokker Dr.I 115/17, of Jasta 15, he is performing aerobatics over his airfield at 1,500 feet in, suffers structural failure as the top wing breaks up, crashes, suffers grievous facial injuries, dies the following day. The Triplane had been delivered to Jasta 15 on 22 October but foul weather kept it grounded until the 28th. Gontermann had scored 21 airplane kills and 18 balloons.

• 1901 – The Royal Aero Club of Great Britain is established.

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 |October 1

• 2012 – The first six of a planned 12 United States Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft transfer from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, to their new base at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa. Hundreds of people gather outside MCAS Futenma to protest their arrival, believing that the crashes of Ospreys in Morocco and Florida earlier in the year and a precautionary landing by an Osprey in North Carolina in September demonstrate that Osprey operations will endanger the residential neighborhoods that surround the base.[1]

• 2000 – Entered Service: Mitsubishi MH2000 with Excel Air Service, Japan

• 1994 – United Airlines creates a new airline named United Shuttle.

• 1990 – Curtis LeMay, American Air Force general, dies (b. 1906).

• 1986 – The B-1 B achieved Initial Operational Capability.

• 1986 – Entered Service: AH-64 Apache with the US 6th Cavalry Brigade

• 1984 – Aeroflot Flight 3352, a Tupolev Tu-154B-1, crashes on landing at Tsentralny Airport, Omsk Russia. One hundred and seventy-four passengers and four people on the ground perish in the crash.

• 1975 – First flight of the Bell YAH-63

• 1971 – Aurigny Air Services commences operations

• 1969 – The Concorde supersonic transport plane exceeds the speed of sound - more than MACH 1 for the first time.

• 1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with 18 fatalities 5.5 miles (8.9 km) south of Wemme, Oregon, marking the first loss of a Douglas DC-9.

• 1964 – Derby Airways changes its name to British Midland Airways

• 1964 – Introduction: Dassault Mirage IV

• 1959 – English Electric test pilot Johnny W.C. Squier, flying prototype two-seat English Electric Lightning T.4, XL628, suffers structural failure, ejects at Mach 1.7, becoming first UK pilot to eject above the speed of sound. Radar tracks the descending fighter, but not the pilot as he landed in the Irish Sea, and despite an extensive search, Squier has to make his way ashore by himself after 28 hours in a dinghy. Squier passes away 30 January 2006, aged 85.

• 1958 – NASA was created to replace NACA.

• 1957 – Aborted takeoff at Homestead AFB, Florida, causes write-off of Boeing B-47B-50-BW Stratojet, 51-2317, of the 379th Bomb Wing. Gear collapses, aircraft burns, but base fire department is able to quench flames such that crew escapes - pilots blow canopy to get out, navigator egresses through his escape hatch.

• 1956 – Chapter Two of the Experimental Aircraft Association is chartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

• 1956 – The RAF's first Avro Vulcan B.1, XA897, which completed a fly-the-flag mission to New Zealand in September, approaches Heathrow in bad weather on GCA approach, crashing short of the runway. Two pilots eject, but four crew do not have ejection seats and are killed. Aircraft Captain Squadron Leader "Podge" Howard and co-pilot Air Marshal Sir Harry Broadhurst survive. Signal delays in the primitive Ground-Controlled Approach system of the time may have let the aircraft descend too low without being warned. Undercarriage damaged in contact short of runway with control lost during attempted go-around.

• 1954 – Nos. 425 and 432 Squadrons were formed at St. Hubert and Bagotville, Quebec, and equipped with Avro Canada CF-100 fighters.

• 1953 – No. 440 Squadron was reformed at Bagotville, Quebec, and equipped with Avro Canada CF-100 fighters.

• 1953 – A USAF North American B-25 Mitchell attached to Andrews AFB, Maryland, crashes in fog and heavy overcast into the forested pinnacle of historic Pine Mountain, striking Dowdell's Knob at ~2130 hrs., near Warm Springs in western Georgia, killing five of six on board, said spokesmen at Lawson AFB. The bomber had departed from Eglin AFB. Florida, at 1930 hrs. for Andrews AFB. Two Eglin airmen were among those KWF. The sole survivor, Richard K. Schmidt, 19, of Rumson, New Jersey, a Navy airman assigned at NAS Whiting Field, Florida, who had hitch-hiked a ride on the aircraft, was found by two farmers who heard the crash and hiked to the spot from their mountainside homes "and found the sailor shouting for help as he lay in the midst of scattered wreckage and mutilated bodies. They said [that] they found a second man alive but base officials said [that] he died before he could be given medical attention." Tom Baxley, one of the farmers, said that the bodies of the dead, most of them torn by the collision, were flung about among the pine trees, and bits of the plane were hurled over a wide area. Schmidt was hospitalized with a possible hip fracture and cuts. Among the fatalities were two airmen assigned to Eglin AFB who had also hitch-hiked a ride and were on their way home on leave. The impact location is on the site of the proposed $40,000,000 Hall of History to mark a scenic point frequented by the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

• 1952 – The RCAF No. 1 Air Division formed as part of 4th Allied Tactical Air Force.

• 1952 – The United States Navy reclassifies all of its “aircraft carriers” (CV) and “large aircraft carriers” (CVB) as “attack aircraft carriers” (CVA).

• 1952 – U.S. Navy Grumman TBM-3S2 Avenger, BuNo 53439, of Air Anti Submarine Squadron-23, NAS San Diego, California, on night radar bombing training flight strikes Pacific Ocean surface at 110 knots (200 km/h) ~2 1/2 miles W of Point Loma. Both crew survive the accidental ditching, with pilot Lt. Ross C. Genz, USNR, rescued after four hours in a life raft by a civilian ship, but radarman AN Harold B. Tenney, USN, apparently drowns after evacuating the bomber and is never seen again. Wreckage discovered in 1992 during underwater survey.

• 1950 – No. 411 Squadron (Auxiliary) was formed at Toronto, Ontario.

• 1950 – First flight of the Ilyushin Il-14

• 1950 – The Royal Danish Air Force is re-established

• 1947 – Los Angeles Airways begins the first scheduled carriage of airmail using the Sikorsky S-51 helicopter. [2]

• 1947 – First flight of the North American XP-86 (F-86 Sabre)

• 1947 – First flight of the Beechcraft Model 34

• 1946 – RAF Bristol Brigand TF.1, RH744, failed to develop sufficient power on takeoff from RAE Farnborough, overran into soft ground and flipped over, without injuries to crew. This was the first Brigand written off.

• 1946 – RCAF returned to a peacetime footing and many Regular Force personnel were reduced in rank.

• 1945 – The first annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association begins in Montreal, Canada.

• 1942 – First flight of the Bell XP-59 “Aircomet”.

• 1942 – No. 149 (TB) Squadron was formed at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

• 1941 – Inter-Island Airways is renamed Hawaiian Airlines.

• 1940 – A British bomber is shot down over the Netherlands by German antiaircraft artillery after being illuminated by a searchlight coupled to a Freya radar. It is the first time an aircraft is destroyed after being detected and illuminated by a radar-guided searchlight.

• 1938 – The newly-formed Trans-Canada Air Lines began regular air mail service between Winnipeg and Vancouver.

• 1936 – C. W. A. Scott and Giles Guthrie win the Schlesinger Race from England to Johannesburg, South Africa, flying Vega Gull G-AEKE landing at Rand Airport on 1 October 1936. The aircraft had left Portsmouth 52 hours 56 min 48 seconds earlier. Out of the original 14 entries to the race Scott and Guthrie were the only ones to finish, winning the 10,000 pounds prize money.

• 1935 – The first company to bear the name British Airways is formed, by the merger of Hillman Airways, Spartan Air Lines and United Airways.

• 1931 – KLM begins a regular service between Amsterdam and Batavia by Fokker F.XII. At 13,744 km (8,540 miles) this is the longest regular air route in the world at the time.

• 1926 in aviation|1926 – An oil field accident cost aviator Wiley Post his left eye, but he used the settlement money to buy his first aircraft.

• 1924 – Pilot E. A. Alton set out on the first recorded aerial mail flight from Estevan, Saskatchewan to Winnipeg, but unfortunately was aborted by a crash.

• 1920 – Refresher training began at Camp Borden, Ontario.

• 1917 – The Royal Navy tests an aircraft catapult for the first time, using a compressed-air catapult aboard the catapult trials ship Slinger to launch an unmanned Short 184 with its fuselage fabric removed and engine replaced by ballast. On the same day, the Royal Navy conducts the first launch of an aircraft from a battleship or battlecruiser, when Royal Naval Air Service Flight Commander F. J. Rutland takes off in a Sopwith Pup from a platform mounted on a 15-inch (381-mm) gun turret of the battlecruiser HMS Repulse.

• 1912 – The Military Aviation Service is founded in Germany. [3]

• 1906 – United States Army Lieutenant Frank Lahm wins the first Gordon Bennett international balloon race. [4]

• 1881 – William E. Boeing is born in Detroit, Mich. (d. 1956).

• 1861 – The United States Army Balloon Corps, consisting of five balloons and fifty men, is formed. [5]

October 31

• 2012 – First flight of the Shenyang J-31.

• 2011 – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announces the end of Operation Unified Protector, its military operations in Libya. Since taking command of the international intervention in the Libyan civil war on 31 March, its aircraft have carried out 9,600 strike sorties and destroyed more than 1,000 tanks, vehicles, and guns, as well as the Libyan air defense and command-and-control network.[1]

• 2006 – Ajet, formerly Helios Airways, ceased operations.

• 2004 – Passenger airline service ends at Mirabel International Airport in Montreal, Canada.

• 2003 – British Airways’ flagship and first Concorde, G-BOAC, makes its final flight, ferrying from London Heathrow to Manchester, where it sits on display.

• 2001 – Air Canada Jetz, operated by Air Canada, commenced operations.

• 2000 – The first resident crew of the International Space Station lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft. The ISS has been continuously manned ever since.

• 2000 – A chartered Antonov An-26 explodes after takeoff in Northern Angola killing 50.

• 2000 – During heavy rain caused by Typhoon Xangsane, the flight crew of Singapore Airlines Flight 006, a Boeing 747-412, attempts to take off from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, using the wrong runway. During its takeoff roll, the plane is destroyed when it collides with construction equipment parked on the runway and bursts into flame, killing 83 of the 179 people on board and injuring 71 of the 96 survivors. It is the first fatal accident involving a Singapore Airlines aircraft other than the 1997 crash of an airliner operated by the Singapore Airlines subsidiary SilkAir. Among the injured survivors is William Wang, later the founder of Vizio.

• 1999 – EgyptAir Flight 990, a Boeing 767 bound for Cairo, Egypt, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 passengers and crew; cause is disputed: a deliberate suicide/homicide act by the relief first officer according to the NTSB, vs. a Boeing mechanical flaw according to Egyptian aviation authorities.

• 1997 – The first upgraded Tornado GR4, the strike attack version of the aircraft with modified systems and avionics. It was delivered to the RAF at Boscombe Down where it would begin trials.

• 1996 – TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais Flight 402, a Fokker 100, crashes shortly after takeoff from Congonhas-São Paulo Airport, Brazil, striking an apartment building and several houses. All 90 passengers and 6 crew members on board die. Three people are killed on the ground.

• 1994 – American Eagle Flight 4184, an ATR 72 turboprop, crashes near Roselawn, Indiana, while waiting to land at Chicago, because of ice buildup on its wings. All 68 people on board died.

• 1990 – The Australian airline industry is deregulated. Airlines are allowed to select their own routes and set their own fares.

• 1987 – British Airways accepts the airline's first women pilots.

• 1980 – Fifth prototype Mikoyan MiG-29, 'samolet 908', which first flew on 5 April 1979 is utilized for powerplant testing after the loss of the third prototype. It, too, is lost when, on its 48th flight on this date, a combustion chamber fails and the resulting fire burns through control runs. Aircraft dives into the ground. A. V. Fedotov ejects while the aircraft is pulling negative G and receives a spinal injury that keeps him in hospital for several months.

• 1979 – Western Airlines Flight 2605, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10, strikes a vehicle on a closed runway in dense fog at Mexico City, Mexico; 72 die.

• 1975 – Final Hawker-Siddeley P.1127 prototype (of six), XP984, first with new swept wing with leading edge extensions and steel cold nozzles, first flown in October 1963, is destroyed in landing accident at RAE Bedford.

• 1974 – First flight of the IAR-93

• 1973 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) escape from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, Ireland after a hijacked helicopter lands in the prison’s exercise yard to pick them up.

• 1972 – Two pilots are killed in the crash of a Dassault Falcon 10 prototype.

• 1964 – Tornado collapses hangar of 1° Gruppo Elicotteri (First Helicopter Group), Italian Navy, at the Naval Air Station at Maristaeli Catania, destroying five Sikorsky SH-34G Seabat: MM143899, c/n 58-599, '4-06'; MM143940, c/n 58-710, '4-07'; MM143949, c/n 58-745, '4-08'; MM80163, c/n 58-990, '21', '4-01', and MM80164, c/n 58-991, '22', '4-02'.

• 1964 – NASA astronaut Theodore Freeman is killed when a goose smashes through the cockpit canopy of his Northrop T-38A-50-NO Talon jet trainer, 63-8188, at Ellington AFB, Texas. Flying shards of Plexiglas enter the jet engine intake, causing the engine to flameout. Freeman ejects but is too close to the ground for his parachute to open properly. He is posthumously awarded the Purple Heart.

• 1963 – LAC HF Schulz rescued an RCAF officer on board a Canadair CL-44D Yukon aircraft, who was in danger of being sucked out of a cargo door. LAC Schulz was awarded the British Empire Medal for Gallantry.

• 1960 – British European Airways retires its last piston-engined airliners.

• 1959 – Colonel G. Mosolov sets a new airspeed record of 2,387 km/h (1,483 mph) in the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-66

• 1956 – A US Navy R4D Skytrain is the first aircraft to land at the South Pole

• 1956 – The United Kingdom and France begin Operation Musketeer, an attempt to seize the Suez Canal from Egypt during the Suez Crisis, closely coordinated with Israel’s Operation Kadesh. The initial strikes against Egypt’s Almaza airfield by Cyprus-based Royal Air Force English Electric Canberras overnight on October 31-November 1 are ineffective.

• 1950 – The 1950 Heathrow British European Airways Viking accident: A British European Airways Vickers VC.1 Viking crashes on the runway at London Heathrow Airport in foggy weather; of the 30 on board, only a stewardess and a passenger survive.

• 1949 – Westland Wyvern test program suffers set-back when second prototype Wyvern TF Mk 2 (N.12/45), VP113, powered by Armstrong Siddeley Python turboprop, crashes in attempted dead-stick landing after the props seize in flight, test pilot killed.

• 1947 – Entered Service: Avro Tudor 4 with British South American Airways

• 1945 – No. 165 (Transport) Squadron was disbanded.

• 1943 – F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful nighttime radar guided interception for the U.S. in the Pacific. It is also the naval service's first night kill in the Pacific. The tracking was done by VMF(N)-531's GCI equipment, which was located on Vella Lavella.

• 1943 – First flight of the Budd RB Conestoga

• 1934 – First prototype Tupolev ANT-40RT suffers engine problems on flight test out of TsAGI (Tsentral'nyy Aerodinamicheskiy i Gidrodinamicheskiy Institut- central aerodynamics and hydrodynamics institute), and pilot K. K. Popov makes a wheels-up forced landing at Khodynka Aerodrome. Repairs take until February 1935. It had made its first flight on 7 October.

• 1934 – The first Canadian-built aircraft with all-metal, monocoque fuselage, the Fairchild Super 71, was flown from the St Lawrence at Longueuil, Quebec.

• 1931 – First flight of the Westland Wallace

• 1930 – Michael Collins, American astronaut, was born. Collins was selected as part of the third group of fourteen astronauts 1963, he flew in space twice. His first spaceflight was Gemini 10, when he and command pilot John W. Young performed two rendezvous with different spacecraft and Collins undertook two EVAs. His second spaceflight was Apollo 11 where he served as the command module pilot.

• 1924 – Retired: Thomas-Morse MB-6

• 1920 – A Curtiss JN-4 became the first airplane used in a political campaign by spreading socialist literature for candidate Eugene V. Debs.

• 1917 – Fokker Dr.I 121/17, flown by Lt. Pastor from Jasta 11, one of the JG.1 units under Manfred von Richthofen, suffers structural failure and crashes. Second such crash in three days causes all Fokker Triplanes to be grounded immediately with affected flight crew reverting temporarily to Albatros D.Va and Pfalz D.III scouts. Accidents are investigated 2 November, reports issued 13 days later. Instructions for manufacturing and assembly improvements are implemented, production and flying resume 28 November.

• 1911 – John Montgomery is fatally injured in a crash of his Evergreen glider near San Jose, California.