Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/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.

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.

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.

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

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.

References

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