Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/July 13

July 13

• 2013 – A missile strike by an American unmanned aerial vehicle kills two Islamic militants riding a motorcycle in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan, Pakistan.

• 2011 – Noar Linhas Aéreas Flight 4896, a Let L-410 Turbolet, crashes just after takeoff from Recife Airport, Brazil, killing all 16 on board.

• 2009 – Southwest Airlines Flight 2294, a Boeing 737-300 from Nashville to Baltimore makes an emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia after a 14x17 inch hole opens in the skin of the fuselage at 34,000 feet (10,000 m), causing a loss of cabin pressure; the plane lands safely with no injuries.

• 2008 – (13-19) 18th FAI World Precision Flying Championship

• 2006 – An RAF Harrier GR9 crashes en route to the Royal International Air Tattoo.

• 2006 – A Royal Air Force BAE Harrier II GR.9 crashes after the pilot ejects near Kidlington in Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom.

• 2006 – AH-64D Apache from 4–4th Aviation Regiment shot down south of Baghdad. The two pilots survive.

• 1995 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-70 at 9:41:55.078 a.m. EDT. Mission highlights: TDRS-G/IUS deployed.

• 1992 – First flight of the 3I Sky Arrow, Italian 2 tandem seat, pusher configuration, high wing and carbon fibre light aircraft.

• 1992 – McDonnell-Douglas F-15C-40-MC Eagle. 85-0116, c/n 0972/C358, of the 60th Fighter Squadron, 33rd Fighter Wing, based at Eglin AFB, Florida, crashes at 0900 hrs. in the Gulf of Mexico, 90 miles S of Eglin. Capt. Darren S. Ruhnau, 27, of Niceville, Florida, assigned to the 60th Fighter Squadron, ejects safely. He and another F-15 had departed Eglin at 0835 hrs. for a training mission. "I'm just glad the ACES II ejection system worked as advertised", Ruhnau said in a statement, "and that the search-and-rescue guys were there to do the job." "He was picked up by an oil freighter", said Capt. Susan Brown, a spokeswoman for the 33rd, but the helicopter crew "couldn't get him off there. So they transferred him to a Coast Guard cutter, but they couldn't get him off there either. He was in such good shape, they dropped him back in the water, and picked him up from there." A U.S. Navy helicopter of HC-16 from the USS Forrestal, which is based in Pensacola, plucked him from the Gulf at ~1000 hrs. and transported him to Eglin Regional Hospital where he was checked out and released at ~1330 hrs. Ruhnau has been flying F-15s since May 1989 and assigned at Eglin since September of that year. In an unrelated incident, another 33rd Fighter Wing F-15 makes a rough landing, overshoots the runway at Eglin and comes to a stop in the grass. The pilot, assigned to the 59th Fighter Squadron, does not eject and is uninjured, the fighter sustains less than $10,000 damage, said Brown.

• 1988 – Death of Edward Rochfort Grange, Canadian WWI flying ace credited with five aerial victories. His postwar career included success as a businessman, and a return to aviation as a civilian inspector and auditor for the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII

• 1988 – The 1988 British International Helicopters Sikorsky S-61N crash in the North Sea due to an engine fire; all 21 on board survive.

• 1988 – US Marine Corps McDonnell-Douglas AV-8B-3 Harrier II, BuNo 161582, c/n 512014/14, of VMAT-203, crashes at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina.

• 1986 – First flight of the PZL-130 T Turbo Orlik, Polish turboprop, single engine, two seat trainer, export version with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 A-25 A turboprop.

• 1985 – Blue Angels Aircraft 5, BuNo 155029, and 6, BuNo 154992, (Douglas A-4F Skyhawk) collide at the top of a loop at 1532 hrs., Niagara Falls International Airport, New York, during the Western New York Air Show '85, killing Lt. Cmdr. Michael Gershon. Second pilot, Lt. Andy Caputi, ejects safely with only minor injuries. One Skyhawk crashed on airport grounds while the second fighter impacted in a nearby auto junkyard. The demonstration team resumes show duties 20 July at Dayton, Ohio but omits maneuver that resulted in crash, and flies with five planes rather than six.

• 1982 – Death of Horia Agarici, Romanian WWII flying ace

• 1982 – United States Navy Reserve Lieutenant Commander Barbara Allen Rainey dies in the crash of a T-34 C Mentor trainer aircraft at Middleton Field near Evergreen, Alabama, during a training flight. In February 1974, as Barbara Ann Allen, she had become the first female aviator in the United States Armed Forces.

• 1982 – A United States Marine Corps F-4J flew into the ground close to Yuma MCAS, Arizona, both crew killed.

• 1982 – A United States Navy F-4S of VMFA-251 crashed into the Atlantic.

• 1977 – Death of Count Carl Gustaf Ericsson von Rosen, Swedish pioneer aviator, killed during a sudden Somali guerrilla attack near Gode. He flew relief missions in a number of conflicts as well as combat missions for Finland and Biafran rebels.

• 1969 – Launch of Luna 15 (Ye-8-5 series), Soviet unmanned space mission to the moon also called Lunik 15.

• 1956 – USAF Douglas C-118A Liftmaster, 53-3301, c/n 44671, encountered windshear after takeoff, lost altitude and crashed in forest near Fort Dix, 46 killed, 20 survivors.

• 1950 – The first flight of the Orenda engine on a Lancaster test bed at Malton.

• 1950 – Birth of George Driver "Pinky" Nelson, NASA astronaut.

• 1950 – AA USAF Boeing B-50D-110-BO Superfortress, 49-267, of the 97th Bomb Wing out of Biggs AFB, Texas, carrying a nuclear weapon bomb casing (but no fuel capsule), stalls at 7,000 feet (2,100 m) at about 1454 hrs. EST, crashes between Lebanon and Mason, Ohio, killing four officers and twelve airmen. No radio communication was received before the crash, and although all crew wore parachutes, none bailed out. HE in bomb casing explodes on impact leaving crater 200X25 feet, explosion heard for 25 miles (40 km). One account states that the weather was clear, but Joe Baugher reports that bomber was in a storm system.

• 1945 – A US Army Air Forces Douglas A-26C Invader, 44-35553, on a training flight has mid-air collision with Eastern Airlines Flight 45 from Washington, D.C. to Columbia, South Carolina, a Douglas DC-3, NC25647',' at ~3100 feet, 11.9 miles WNW of Florence, South Carolina at 1436 hrs. A-26 vertical fin strikes port wing of airliner, displaces engine of DC-3 which cuts into fuselage; A-26 tail sheared off, two crew parachute, one KWF. DC-3 pilot belly lands in cornfield, one passenger of 24 total on board killed.

• 1945 – 517 B-29 s drop 3,640 tons (3,302,186 kg) of bombs on Utsunomiya and other cities in Japan.

• 1943 – An Axis air attack destroys a Liberty ship off Sicily.

• 1943 – (Overnight) Allied transport aircraft carrying paratroopers from North Africa to Sicily again fly low in darkness over Allied ships and ground forces, and again come under friendly fire. Several are shot down. In Operation Fustian, the British Army’s First Parachute Brigade land in gliders and capture the Primosole bridge, but a German parachute battalion that previously had landed nearby drives the British off the bridge by the following evening

• 1943 – (Overnight) – Royal Air Force Bomber Command flies the last raid of its “Battle of the Ruhr” campaign against the Ruhr region of Germany. Since the campaign began in March, Bomber Command has flown 29 major attacks against the Ruhr and the Rheinland, including five against Essen – which alone suffers 1,037 dead, 3,500 severely injured, and 4,830 homes destroyed – Four each against Duisburg and Cologne, three against Bochum, and one or two each against other cities. Bomber Command has lost 672 aircraft during the Ruhr and Rheinland raids, a 4.8 percent loss rate, and 4,400 aviators. Separately, during same period Bomber Command also has flown 18 major attacks against other targets in France, in Italy, and in Germany outside the Ruhr and Rheinland, including two raids on Berlin and strikes against Munich, Stettin, Turin, La Spezia, and the Škoda Works in Pilsen.

• 1934 – Birth of Aleksei Stanislavovich Yeliseyev, Soviet cosmonaut.

• 1929 – The Polish aviator Ludwik Idzikowski crashes in the Azores and dies in an attempt of a westbound transatlantic flight.

• 1928 – An Imperial Airways Vickers Vulcan crashes on a test flight from Croydon Airport with a pilot and five passengers near Purley, Surrey, 3 miles (4.8 km) from the airport, with the loss of four passengers. As a result of the crash Imperial Airways stopped the flying of staff (so-called joy rides) on test flights

• 1925 – Western Air Express is founded.

• 1919 – The British military airship R.34, operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF), accomplishes the first two-way transatlantic air crossing. The outward journey is also the first air crossing of the Atlantic from east to west.

• 1915 – Birth of David Lee "Tex" Hill, American WWII fighter ace and Korean War fighter pilot. One of the First pilots of First American Volunteer Group (better known by its later nickname of the Flying Tigers)

• 1914 – Birth of Franz Xaver von Werra, German WWII fighter ace who was shot down over England and captured. He is generally regarded as the only Axis prisoner of war to succeed in escaping from a Canadian prisoner of war camp and returning to Germany.

• 1913 – Léon Letort carries out the First non-stop flight between Paris and Berlin when he flies his Morane-Saulnier monoplane fitted with an 80-hp Le Rhône engine the 590 miles between the two capitals.

• 1910 – Death of Oskar Erbslöh, German aviation pioneer, in the crash of his airship Erbslöh

• 1909 – If brief hops by Alliott Verdon Roe on June 8, 1908 are discounted, the first flight made by an Englishman in an English airplane takes place when Roe flies his Roe I triplane for the first time at Lea Marsches in Essex. He flies only 100 ft., but on July 23 he extends the distance to some 900 ft. off the ground.

• 1897: Salomon August Andrée, Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel lands their hydrogen balloon 'Eagle' in the Arctic.