2011 – Iran Air Flight 277, crashes while performing a go-around at Urmia Airport killing 77 of the 106 people aboard, and injuring 26 people. A total of 28 people survived. The aircraft involved in the accident was a Boeing 727-286Adv.
2007 – The 2007 Balad aircraft crash was an airplane incident involving an Antonov An-26 airliner, which crashed while attempting to land at the U. S. military base in Balad, Iraq. The crash killed 34 people aboard and left one passenger critically injured.
2003 – TANS Perú Flight 222, a Fokker F28, crashes while on approach to Chachapoyas Airport; all 46 on board die.
2001 – Launch of Shenzhou 2, second Chinese uncrewed Shenzhou spacecraft. Inside the reentry capsule were a monkey, a dog and a rabbit in a test of the spaceship's life support systems.
1997 – Balloonists Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson abandon their non-stop, round-the-flight in Virgin Global Challenger, when its hydrogen gas buoyancy cell develops a leak.
1997 – Comair Flight 3272, an Embraer EMB-120 Brasília, crashes near Ida, Michigan, during a snowstorm. All 29 on board die.
1997 – Royal Air Force BAE Systems Harrier GR.7, ZD377, crashed at Laarbruch, ending up inverted on runway, burned.
1990 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-32 at 7:35:00 am EST. Mission highlights: SYNCOM IV-F5 satellite deployment, LDEF retrieval, IMAX.
1983 – One of two USAF McDonnell-Douglas F-4C Phantom IIs of the Michigan Air National Guard sent on a Special Military Instrument Intercept Clearance Mission to intercept a private Beechcraft D-55 Baron, registered N7142N, that strays into restricted ADIZ zone off the North Carolina coast, collides at 1641 hrs. EST in poor visibility with light-twin piloted by Waynesboro, Virginia lawyer Henry H. Tiffany, the jet's port wing slicing through the Baron's fuselage and cabin, killing all seven on board. Although suffering damage to wing's leading edge, and loss of port wing tank assembly, the F-4C returns safely to Seymour-Johnson AFB near Goldsboro, North Carolina. Pentagon report, prepared by the National Guard Bureau of the Army and the Air Force, issued 18 May 1983, notes that Tiffany, 47, en route from vacation in the Bahamas to Norfolk, Virginia, had failed to adhere to his flight plan, and also failed to notify controllers when he entered the restricted air space 20 miles S of MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. Phantom pilot, Capt. John A. Wellers, was found to have closed on the Beechcraft at higher than intended speed while doing radar search and was faulted for failure to maintain 500 foot vertical separation as per instructions. The report notes that the Aerospace Defense Command radar operators at Fort Lee, Virginia, gave Wellers incorrect altitude data about his target, and that personnel at the FAA's flight control center in Leesburg, Virginia, and military controllers at Fort Lee "were slow to react or acted improperly in the process of identifying the unknown aircraft." Flamboyant lawyer Tiffany had been imprisoned for two months in 1978 after a plane he was piloting was forced down with engine trouble in Haiti with more than a ton of marijuana on board. U.S. drug authorities said later that Tiffany was implicated in a major Northern Virginia smuggling ring. In fact, on the fatal flight, Tiffany was by-passing his flight plan's required U.S. customs stop in Florida and was attempting a direct flight to Norfolk, said a National Transportation Safety Board report issued 23 August 1983.
1975 – Golden West Airlines Flight 261, a De Havilland Twin Otter, collides with a Cessna 150 near Whittier, California, killing all 14 people in both aircraft.
1975 – A USAF Convair T-29D-CO, 52-5826, c/n 52-25, returning to Langley AFB, Virginia, from Key Field, Meridian, Mississippi, with seven Air Force personnel on board, suffers mid-air collision at 1836 hrs. with a Cessna 150H, N50430, of Cavalier Flyers, with two U.S. Navy personnel on board, 4.1 miles (6.5 km) W of Newport News, Virginia, the wreckage of both aircraft coming down in the James River. Maj. Errol Loving, a Langley AFB spokesman, said that Army salvage workers, aided by local authorities, recovered wreckage and bodies from the river throughout the following weekend. Capt. Gail Anderson of Langley AFB stated that divers had recovered one of the two engines of the T-29 as well as other "significant" parts which were placed on a barge and returned to Langley by Sunday 12 January. Seven of the nine victims' bodies had also been recovered but Maj. Loving stated that the identities of the victims would not be released until all bodies had been identified. The wreckage of the two aircraft were located in the river ~300 yards apart. The probable cause was given as "The human limitation inherent in the see-and-avoid concept, which can be critical in a terminal area with a combination of controlled and uncontrolled traffic. A possible contributing factor was the reduced nighttime conspicuity of the Cessna against a background of city lights." "Following the collision, Billy E. Commander, chief of the Norfolk air traffic control tower, said a new Stage III radar service designed to reduce the potential for mid-air collisions will be available in February to aircraft served by Norfolk Regional Airport and should assure that planes have at least 500 feet of vertical separation from each other."
1973 – In the Vietnam War, President Richard M. Nixon’s administration permits American fighter aircraft to pursue North Vietnamese aircraft north of the 20th Parallel.
1970 – Death of Frederick Libby, first American ace of WWI.
1945 – Task Force 38 carrier aircraft strike Japanese targets at Formosa and Miyako-jima in foul weather, flying 717 sorties and dropping 212 tons (192,325 kg) of bombs. They shoot down all four Japanese aircraft they encounter in the air and claim 42 more on the ground, in exchange for the loss of 10 U. S. aircraft. They also sink a number of merchant ships and small naval craft. It is the last of seven days of Task Force 38 support to the Lingayen landings, during which it has flown 3,030 combat sorties, dropped 9,110 bombs – Totaling about 700 tons (635,036 kg) of bombs – And lost 46 planes in combat and 40 to non-combat causes.
1945 – U. S. forces invade Luzon, landing at Lingayen Gulf. During the day, kamikazes attacking ships in the gulf damage the battleship USS Mississippi (BB-41) and the light cruiser USS Columbia (CL-56).
1945 – A C-97 Stratofreighter (Model 367) sets a transcontinental record by flying 2,323 miles from Seattle to Washington, D. C., in 6 hours and 4 min, at an average speed of 383 miles per hour.
1943 – Boeing B-29 Superfortresses based at Kunming, China, attack Japanese shipping along the coast of Formosa, while Mariana Islands-based B-29s drop 122 tons (110,678 kg) of bombs on Japan.
1941 – (9-10) Italian bombers attack a Gibraltar-to-Malta convoy escorted by the British aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious, scoring no hits and losing two of their number to Fairey Fulmar fighters from Ark Royal.
1941 – (Overnight) – 135 British bombers attack oil targets in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
1931 The Pratt-MacArthur agreement defines the United States Navy’s naval air force as an element of the fleet that moves with the fleet and helps it carry out its missions. The agreement settles a lengthy controversy between the United States Army and the Navy over the role of naval aviation in overall national defense, as well as internal Navy debates over the role of naval air power.
1926 – Death of Maurice Albert Rousselle, French WWI flying ace.
1923 – (9 or 17) The Cierva C.4, designed by Juan de la Cierva y Cordoniu and piloted by Alejandro Gomez Spencer, makes its first flight, covering a distance of about 180 m (590 feet) at Cuatro Vientos airfield in Spain. It is the first flight by an autogyro, and the first stable flight by any form of rotary-wing aircraft.
1918 – Death of Max Ritter von Müller, German WWI fighter ace, his Albatros D.Va shot down by 2 SE5a fighters near Moorslede.
1917 – The Royal Navy seaplane carrier Ben-my-Chree is sunk by Ottoman artillery while in harbor at Castelorizo Island, becoming the only aviation ship of any nationality sunk by enemy action during World War I.
1911 – Joseph Joel "Joe" Hammond, reaches a speed estimated at 44-47mph and an altitude of 2,500 feet while giving a demonstration attended by the Governor of Western Australia.
1911 – Death of Edvard Rusjan, Slovene flight pioneer and airplane constructor in the crash of his prototype "Sokol".
1900 – Birth of Richard Halliburton, American traveler, adventurer, and author, Best known today for having swum the length of the Panama Canal and paying the lowest toll in its history (36 cents), and having flown round the world (Flying Carpet Expedition) in a Stearman C-3 B.
1898 – Birth of Albert Edward Woodbridge, British WWI flying ace.
1898 – Birth of Robert John Orton Compston DSC**, DFC, British WWI fighter ace.
1892 – Birth of Rothesay Nicholas Montagu Stuart Wortley, British WWI flying ace and aviation journalist.
1892 – Birth of Charles Meredith Bouverie Chapman, British WWI flying ace.
1889 – Birth of Roger Amedee Del'Haye, Canadian WWI flying ace.
1793 – First balloon flight in North America is made by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, ascending from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and landing in Deptford, Gloucester County, New Jersey.
^Harro Ranter. "Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 17 September 2009.
^"Plane crash in Iraq kills at least 30 workers". msnbc. 2007-01-09. Retrieved 2010-02-20. A cargo plane carrying Turkish workers crashed during landing at an airstrip north of Baghdad, killing 30 people and injuring at least two, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. Initial reports indicated the plane crashed due to bad weather and heavy fog, a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not yet been authorized. Private Turkish news agencies said the plane was trying to land around noon local time (7 a.m. ET) at the U.S. military base at Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad. The Foreign Ministry confirmed that the crash happened at Balad, but did not say whether it was at the U.S. base. The Antonov-26 plane had taken off from an airport in Turkey's southern city of Adana and was carrying construction workers from the Kulak construction company, the governor of Adana said. The company's owner was among the dead, CNN-Turk television reported. Phone calls to Kulak's offices in Adana and Ankara went unanswered after the crash. On board were 29 Turks and one American, as well as three air crew members from Moldova, one from Russia and one from Ukraine, Gov. Cahit Kirac said. The deputy head of Turkey's aviation authority, Ali Ariduru, confirmed that there were 35 people on board, but did not give the names or nationalities of the killed and injured. It was unclear whether anyone escaped the crash uninjured. CNN-Turk television said the pilot had aborted an initial landing attempt for an unknown reason, then crashed on his second attempt.
