Portal:Aviation/Today in aviation

May 2

• 2011 – Operation Neptune Spear. 2 modified Black Hawk helicopters ("stealth" versions) carrying Navy seals lands in at Abbottabad, Pakistan, and kill Terrorist Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Lade, founder of al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets.

• 2010 – A Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter of the United States Army carrying two soldiers of the 116th Aviation Group, was participating in a routine drill when it crashed on a ramp while taxiing at McEntire Joint National Guard Base, South Carolina, shortly before 1400 hrs. Both crew were taken to hospital. Pilot 1st Lt. Jonathan Shively Jr., 33, of Jamestown, died of injuries, but second pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Roger Carpenter, 46, of Spartanburg, was in stable condition.

• 2009 – Uli Dembinski, German aerobatic pilot, establishes a record of 333 loops with his Yak-55.

• 2008 – A chartered South Sudan Air Connection Beechcraft 1900 carrying 2 crew and 19 passengers, including South Sudan defense minister Dominic Dim Deng, crashed near Rumbek, Sudan, while en route from Wau to Juba. There were no survivors.

• 2005 – Two F/A-18C Block 39/40 Hornet fighter jets of VMFA-323, BuNos 164721 and 164732, collide over south-central Iraq, during a sortie from USS Carl Vinson, killing the two pilots.

• 1999 – The same day an American F-16 was shot down near Šabac and an A-10 Thunderbolt II was heavily damaged, operation control lost contact of an UAV in the Adriatic Sea, close to the coast and minutes from landing. Local fishermen witnesses give credit to the rumors this was a covered Dassault Mirage F1B (codename yogsothoth) damaged in dogfight over Beograd. Reports of airplane discharging something at sea were collected by coast guard, as well as the bail out of two pilots. Following the accident, never credited by the air force, it was confirmed that jet fighters were dropping unused weapons into the sea before landing.

• 1998 – The 100th and final B-1 B was delivered.

• 1981 – A 55-year-old Australian man, Laurence James Downey, enters a lavatory aboard Aer Lingus Flight 164, a Boeing 737-200 with 107 other people on board, five minutes before landing at London Heathrow Airport in London, England, douses himself with petrol (gasoline), and walks into the cockpit with a cigarette lighter in his hand. He demands that the airliner fly to Iran, then specifies France when the flight crew tells him that the aircraft lacks the fuel to fly to Iran. The plane lands at Le Touquet – Côte d'Opale Airport in Le Touquet, France, where Downey demands that Pope John Paul II make public the Third Secret of Fatima. After 10 hours, French police storm the plane and arrest Downey without injury to anyone.

• 1975 – Death of Emil Meinecke, German WWI flying ace and Fokker test pilot post WWI.

• 1970 – Death of Arturo Merino Benítez, Chilean aviator, founder of both the Chilean Air Force and LAN Chile, the national airline.

• 1970 – ALM Flight 980, a Douglas DC-9 operated by Overseas National Airways, ditches near St. Croix, Virgin Islands, killing 23, including two infants and one crew member; 40, including 4 crew members, survive.

• 1968 – Death of Edwin Charles "Ted" Parsons, American former French Foreign Legionnaire, WWI flying ace, Rear Admiral of the US Navy, Hollywood aviation technical advisor, FBI Special Agent, and author.

• 1967 – Delivery to the USAF of the A-37 A and named Dragonfly begins.

• 1966 – British European Airways (British European Airways) opens the first jet service between London Heathrow and Glasgow, using de Havilland Comet 4 Bs.

• 1964 – A North Vietnamese frogman sinks the U. S. Navy aviation transport USS Card (T-AKV-40) – formerly the escort aircraft carrier USNS Card (CVE-11) – pierside while she unloads helicopters at Saigon, South Vietnam. She soon is refloated and repaired.

• 1963 – Death of Fritz Horn, German pioneer of Civilian Aviation.

• 1958 – Roger Carpentier beats Watkin’s two-week-old world altitude record when he flies to 79,452 feet in a Sud-Ouest SO 9050 in Istres, France.

• 1957 – First delivery of the McDonnell F-101 A Voodoo to the 27th Tactical Fighter Wing.

• 1957 – Birth of Dominic Lee Pudwill Gorie, American Naval officer and NASA astronaut, veteran of 4 space shuttle missions.

• 1956 – A USAF Boeing B-47E-85-BW Stratojet, 52-0450, c/n 450732, of the 98th Bomb Wing (also reported as of the 372d Bomb Squadron, 307th Bomb Wing), crashes short of runway, Lincoln AFB, Nebraska. One account states that it was on instrument approach. Another states that it came down "three miles short of the Northwest runway after departing on an evening training mission. Eyewitnesses said the plane appeared to be trying to belly in for a landing, crashed, then exploded and burned. The crash site was on farmland owned by Edmund Nelson, ½ mile west of 79 Hi-way and 2 ½ miles north of U.S. 34." KWF are Captain Marion J. Perdue, aircraft commander, 33, San Antonio, Texas; 2nd Lieutenant Linwood M. McIntosh, co-pilot, 22, Dallas, Texas; Captain Charles H. Stonesifer, navigator/bombardier, 35, Maricopa, California; and Staff Sergeant William F. Rockholt, crew chief, 24, Fellows, California. All crew were from the 345th Bomb Squadron.

• 1953 – BOAC De havilland DH-106 Comet 1 Flight 783/057 crashes just after take off from Calcutta due to structural failure, killing all 43 on board.

• 1952 – BOAC introduces the de Havilland DH.108 Comet on its London-Johannesburg route, the first regular service flown by a jet airliner. G-ALYP makes the first flight.

• 1945 – Death of Eric James Brindley Nicolson, British WWII fighter pilot, only Battle of Britain pilot and the only pilot of RAF Fighter Command to be awarded the Victoria Cross, killed in the crash of a RAF B-24 Liberator in which he was flying as an observer.

• 1945 – The British East Indies Fleet’s 2first Aircraft Carrier Squadron – consisting of the aircraft carriers HMS Emperor, HMS Hunter, HMS Khedive, and HMS Stalker – begin support of Operation Dracula, a British assault on Rangoon, Burma. Their aircraft fly 110 sorties, bombing Japanese forces in support of a British amphibious landing.

• 1942 – The Japanese seaplane carrier Mizuho sinks with the loss of 101 lives after the U. S. Navy submarine USS Drum (SS-228) had torpedoed her late the previous evening 40 nautical miles (74 km) off Omaezaki, Japan. There are 472 survivors.

• 1941 – The Anglo-Iraqi War between British forces and a pro-Axis Iraqi government begins with 41 Royal Air Force Station Habbaniya- and Shaibah-based Royal Air Force planes launching a surprise attack against Iraqi forces surrounding Habbaniya and Iraqi airfields. Royal Iraqi Air Force aircraft respond. By the end of the day, the British have destroyed 22 Iraqi aircraft on the ground, losing five of their own.

• 1936 – American parachutist, Clement Joseph 'Clem' Sohn, makes his first jump in England, at Hanworth airfield near London. Unusually, Sohn attached wings to his body, which were deployed when he opened his arms and legs and allowed him to glide.

• 1935 – First flight of the Bolkhovitinov DB-A, Soviet 4 engine heavy bomber and raid aircraft

• 1932 – Death of Otto Jindra, Austro Hungrian WWI flying ace who, post war, became Czechoslovakian citizen and was instrumental in raising a Czechoslovak Air Force.

• 1927 – Herbert Arthur "Bert" Dargue, leading the U. S. Army Pan American Flight, a public relations goodwill mission to promote U. S. aviation in South America, Flying 5 Loening OA-1 A seaplanes complete the mission after having traveled 22,000 miles (35,200 km) in 59 flight days, stopping at 72 cities along the route.

• 1925 – The Douglas C-1 biplane makes its first flight at Santa Monica, California and during the month completes trials at McCook Field.

• 1923- 2-3 – Kelly MacReady complete the first non-stop flight from New York to Los Angeles, in 27 hours in a Fokker T-2.

• 1919 – A U.S. Army seaplane en route on afternoon flight from Balboa, Panama to France Field, near present-day Colón, Panama, with three aviators on board, suffers engine failure shortly after departure. Pilot Lt. J. R. L. Hitt attempts landing on Miraflores Lake but aircraft falls short and hits the front of the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal at ~1700 hrs. Airframe crumples "like a house of cards", according to account published by the Panama Star & Herald on 3 May. Hitt, Lt. Thomas Cecil Tonkin, and Maj. Harold Melville Clark (4 October 1890 - 2 May 1919) are all thrown from the plane into the water of the lock. "Lieutenant Tonkin was undoubtedly killed instantly by the twisting timbers of the machine. ...Major Clark sank to the bottom of the lock, and it's not known whether he was killed in the crash or whether he drowned", stated the article. Hitt was severely injured in the crash, but was rescued by bystanders. The Panama Star & Herald reported that a diver was sent to retrieve Clark's body. The Army rules his death as an accident due to internal injuries caused by "aeroplane traumatism", according to a War Department report on Clark's death dated 8 May 1919, and awards his mother $10,000. Clark is buried 29 May 1919, with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Clark had made the first-ever inter-island flight in the Hawaiian Islands on 15 March 1918, in a Curtiss N-9 of the 6th Aero Squadron. Fort Stotsenburg, established in the Philippines in 1902, is renamed Clark Air Base with the establishment of the U.S. Air Force in 1947.

• 1918 – Death of Hans Weiss, German WWI fighter ace, shot down in his Fokker Triplane by a Sopwith Camel.

• 1918 – Death of Edgar Scholtz, German WWI flying ace, Killed in action in his Fokker DR. I

• 1918 – Death of Federico Fenu, Italian Balloonist.

• 1917 – Birth of Hugh Gordon Malcolm VC, Scottish WWII pilot, first RAF Victoria Cross in North Africa.

• 1917 – Camp Borden Aerodrome was formally taken over by RFC Canada – The first of the new training fields.

• 1916 – Eight German Zeppelins raid the east coast of England, causing 39 casualties. The Zeppelin L 20 is wrecked in a storm off Stavanger, Norway on the return journey.

• 1909 – John Moore-Brabazon the first resident British citizen to make a recognized powered heavier-than-air flight in the UK, flying from The Aero Club’s ground at Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey in his Voisin biplane Bird of Passage.

• 1902 – Birth of Ettore Muti, Italian aviator and Fascist politician.

• 1899 – Birth of George Stacey Hodson, British WWI flying ace and RAF WWII high-ranking officer.

• 1897 – Birth of Thomas Charles Richmond Baker, Australian WWI flying ace.

• 1895 – Birth of Orvil Arson Anderson, American pioneer balloonist.

• 1892 – Born Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, was a German pilot and is still regarded today as the "ace of aces". He was a very successful fighter pilot, military leader and flying ace who won 80 air combats during World War I.

• 1891 – Birth of Geoffrey Hilton "Beery" Bowman, British WWI fighter ace.

• 1891 – Birth of General Sir Hesperus Andrias 'Pierre' van Ryneveld, South African military commander, WWI fighter ace, raid pilot and WWII high-ranking officer.

• 1883 – Birth of Alessandro Cagno (nickname Sandrin), Italian racing driver and aviation pioneer.

References

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