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The pilot Donald James Gaynor, 68, died at the scene. He was known to be an experienced pilot. According to witnesses, the aircraft was performing aerobatic maneuvers before crashing for unknown reasons.
The passenger Jeff Kramer, 47, is listed in serious condition at Bayfront Hospital.
2009 - A Champion 7HC-9 single engine plane crashed during takeoff into a Cherokee County, Alabama home this afternoon, just before 1:00 p.m. in the Northwood Estates subdivision. That is close to the Centre Municipal Airport.
2009 - WGS F2 (USA 204) satellite launched and now in orbit.
The Wideband Global SATCOM 2 spacecraft is part of a military mission to serve U.S. forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The satellite will be parked over the equator around 60 degrees East longitude for use by U.S. Central Command in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of Southwest Asia.
2009 - First airshow in five years for Keesler Air Force Base, marking the first time the Air Force Thunderbirds will have performed here in 20 years.
2009 - A Wideband Global SATCOM 2 spacecraft, part of a military mission to serve U.S. forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, is launched.
The
WGS F2 (USA 204) satellite will be parked over the equator around 60 degrees East longitude for use by U.S. Central Command in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of Southwest Asia.
2008 - Guess what? Selling $10 tickets can't make you money. Skybus Airlines has made its final flight.
Just over 10 months after its heralded takeoff at Port Columbus, the airline that became famous for its $10 fares said this evening that its final flight of the day would be its last. The company has lost millions of dollars and plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday.
Its chief executive, Bill Diffenderffer, resigned about two weeks ago. The company’s new CEO, Mike Hodge, blamed oil prices and a slowing economy for the abrupt shutdown.
This is the fourth airline to fold this week. Skybus isn't offering any sort of alternate arrangements, so wherever you're stranded, you'll have to find your own way home.
This week the RAF celebrated the 90th anniversary of its creation. It is not too late to make amends to some of its bravest men.
2008 - U.S. Air Force Reserve Command officials stood up its first space wing, the 310th Space Wing, at Peterson Air Force Base.
2008 - The VH-71 presidential helicopter is now expected to cost $4.4 billion more than initial estimates.
2008 - Northwest Airlines said it would cut its schedules by 5% and boost fares as part of an effort to offset soaring fuel prices. The airline said it will also add baggage fees and fuel surcharges.
"Over the past several months, the price of oil has risen dramatically to all-time highs, and there is no reasonable basis to conclude that oil prices will materially decline any time soon," CEO Doug Steenland said. "These increased costs are significant and call for a strong response from us."
Problems with the terminal's baggage-handling system forced the airline to cancel 300 flights. The carrier hopes to operate a full schedule on Saturday. Good luck Brits
The defendants, all Britons with ties to Pakistan, are accused of plotting to blow up at least seven jetliners bound for the United States and Canada in 2006. Prosecutors calculated about 1,500 people on board the passenger jets — and potentially many more on the ground if the planes exploded over cities — could have been killed if the planned coordinated attacks had been carried out.
Soft drink bottles injected with hydrogen peroxide-based explosives were to be smuggled on board and bombs assembled in jetliner toilets, Wright said. A hollowed-out camera battery was to be used to hide a detonator.
Major disruption was caused to British airports and hundreds of flights were grounded when police arrested the suspects in August 2006. Airlines quickly imposed tough new limits on the amount of liquids and gels--and types of carryon luggage--passengers can take on flights.
All eight men deny charges of conspiracy to murder and planning an act of violence likely to endanger the safety of an aircraft. Both offenses carry maximum sentences of life imprisonment.
2008 - A U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber that landed at Al Udeid Air Force Base, Qatar and then caught fire while taxiing was safely evacuated by all four crew members.
The unit cost for the bomber is $283.1 million. This was the ninth loss of a B-1 bomber.
2008 - Lockheed Martin has delivered a sixth C-130J Super Hercules to the 41st Airlift Squadron, a unit of the 463rd Airlift Group, at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. The 41st, also known as the Black Cats, is the first active-duty C-130J combat squadron in the U. S. Air Force.
2007 - First flight of the single-engine aircraft DA50 Super Star in Wiener Neustadt, Austria.
Christian Dries, CEO and owner of Diamond Aircraft flew the aircraft as pilot in command. Also on board was Soeren Pedersen director of Sales, as chief test pilot.
2006 - Major Grolla and Captain Mioni were the first ever Brazilian Air Force (FAB - Força Aérea Brasileira) pilots to solo fly the Mirage 2000.
Grolla and Mioni were later certified as the type’s instructors. On July 15, 2005, presidents Luís Inácio Lula da Silva and Jacques Chirac met in Paris and signed a contract for the transfer of twelve Dassault Mirage 2000s (ten "C" and two "B" versions) from the Armée de l’Air to the Brazilian Air Force. The contract is worth € 80 million and also covered pilot and ground crew training plus operational support. The deliveries were divided in three batches; four aircraft in 2006, four in 2007 and the last four in 2008.
2004 - Alaska Airlines discontinued service between San Francisco and Tucson.
2000 - In Iraq U.S. and British warplanes bombed military sites in the south.
2000 - United States Department of Defense gave approval for $3.1 billion of Engineering and Manufacturing Development work on the RAH-66 Comanche attack helicopter.
The helicopter was due to enter service with the United States Army in 2006.
1999 - The U.S. announced that it would send 24 Apache helicopter gunships to attack Serbian troops and tanks in Kosovo.
1999 - NATO dropped more bombs on downtown Belgrade.
1999 - A C-17 Globemaster III started Operation Sustain Hope by airlifting relief supplies from Dover AFB, Delaware, to Tirana, Albania.
The humanitarian airlift component of Operation Allied Force, Air Mobility Command used C-5s, C-17s and C-130s to airlift 913 passengers and 5,939 short tons of food and supplies to refugee camps in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro until July 8.
1991 - Strategic Air Command assigned KC-10s to Tactical Air Command's 4th Wing, the first composite wing. Strategic Air Command remained the single air refueling manager.
1991 - U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command assigned KC-10s to Tactical Air Command's 4th Wing, the first composite wing. Strategic Air Command remained the single air refueling manager.
1991 - H. John Heinz III, 53-years-old, Pennsylvania Senator, killed in airplane crash.
The plane, a two-engine Piper Aerostar, reported difficulty with its landing gear and the helicopter flew nearby to help assess the problem. During this maneuver both planes were in contact with air traffic controllers and with each other. They were under positive control, meaning that air traffic controllers were giving them instructions for flying near the airport. The helicopter flew near the Senator’s plane once, but could not detect any problem with its landing gear. The plane flew past the airport, circling for another attempt to land
At that point the helicopter made a second pass near the Senator’s plane to take another look, and the two aircraft collided.
The plane fell onto the grounds of an elementary school in Lower Merion Township. The Senator, two people in his plane, two pilots in the Bell 412SP helicopter and two children playing outside at noon recess were killed. One schoolboy was burned critically. Several children and bystanders were injured.
1990 - The U.S. Air Force adds to its inventory the last of 60 official KC-10A Extender tanker/cargo aircraft built by McDonnell Douglas.
1983 - SPACE MILESTONE: STS-6 (U.S.).
The space shuttle Challenger² roared into orbit on its maiden voyage, with four astronauts (Paul Weitz, Karol Bobko, Story Musgrave and Donald Peterson). There was a four-hour spacewalk by Musgrave and Peterson. Landed at Edward Air Force Base, California on April 9. Challenger joined the NASA fleet of reusable winged spaceships and flew nine successful Space Shuttle missions. But on January 28, 1986, its tenth launch, the Challenger and its crew of seven were lost 73 seconds after launch when a booster failure resulted in the breakup of the vehicle.
1978 - Pan American World Airways (Pan-Am) placed an order for Lockheed L-1011 TriStars worth $500 million.
1977 - The Coast Guard designated its first female Coast Guard aviator, Janna Lambine. She was Coast Guard Aviator #1812.
1977 - Southern Airways Flight 242 crash-landed on a highway after engine failure, 62 out of 85 aboard killed, 8 ground fatalities.
1975 - To evacuate Cambodia and Vietnam, U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command flew tanker and reconnaissance sorties to support the U.S. withdrawal.
Through April 30, C-141's and C-130s flew 375 missions to carry 50,493 Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees from Indochina to Pacific staging areas. From April 12 to August 16, Andersen AFB, Guam became a temporary haven for some 110,000 refugees who traveled to the U.S.
1975 - A major U.S. airlift of South Vietnamese orphans begins with disaster.
An Air Force cargo jet crashes shortly after departing from Tan Son Nhut airbase in Saigon. More than 138 passengers, mostly children, were killed. Operation Baby Lift was designed to bring 2,000 South Vietnamese orphans to the United States for adoption by American parents. Baby Lift lasted for 10 days and was carried out during the final, desperate phase of the war, as North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon. Although this first flight ended in tragedy, all subsequent flights were completed safely, and Baby Lift aircraft brought orphans across the Pacific until the mission's conclusion on April 14, only 16 days before the fall of Saigon and the end of the war.
Capt. Mary Therese Klinker, a flight nurse with the 10th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, Travis Air Force Base, temporarily assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, was on the C-5A Galaxy which crashed, outside Saigon while evacuating Vietnamese orphans. From Lafayette, IN, she was 27-years-old. She was posthumously awarded the Airman's Medal for Heroism and the Meritorious Service Medal.
1972 - The U.S. Air Force renamed the advanced intercontinental ballistic missile as Missile-X.
1969 - The 49th Tactical Fighter Wing, Spangdahlem AB, Germany redeployed 72 F-4Ds to Holloman AFB, New Mexico, using 504 refuelings.
The unit earned the Mackey Trophy for this event.
1967 - The U.S. lost its 500th plane over Vietnam.
1969 - The X-24 Lifting Body completed its first captive flight with test pilot Maj. Jerauld R. Gentry at the controls.
1966 - British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) opens its first scheduled service to Mexico, flying to Mexico City via Bermuda and Kingston, Jamaica.
1964 - After an earthquake hit Anchorage and Seward, Alaska, C-124s, airlifted 235,000 pounds of supplies from McChord AFB, Washington, to the area.
The Air Rescue Service flew medical supplies, reconnaissance and evacuated the injured and homeless.
1961 - Defensa Antiaerea y Fuerza Aerea Revolucionaria (The Air and Air Defense Forces--DAAFAR] Fuerza Aérea Revolucionara (Cuban Revolutionary Air Force) pilot Rafael del Pino Diaz shot down a U.S. Beechcraft AT-11 while flying a T-33.
1955 - The Vickers Viscount was introduced onto Trans-Canada’s Toronto-New York route.
1951 - U.S. Far East Air Forces aircraft racked up 1,000 sorties hitting No. Korean frontline positions and supply areas.
1949 - First flight of the An-2F reconnaissance airplane, crew led by A.E. Pashkevich.
1947 - The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is officially founded in Montreal, Canada.
It is an intergovernmental organization, established to regulate air transportation on a worldwide basis, its authority restricted only by the number of signatory nations.
1946 - Sears, Roebuck & Company begins a new, regular weekly overnight shipment of women’s clothing from New York to the West Coast by airplane.
1945 - An YR-4 helicopter from the Tenth Air Force Air-Jungle Rescue Detachment landed in enemy territory in Burma and successfully rescued a PT-19 crash survivor.
This event was the first helicopter combat rescue.
1945 - First flgiht of an airplane with a motor compressed air power plant, the I-250(N) from the MiG Design bureau. Flown by A.P. Deev.
1944 - Long range Yak-9DD fighter with range up to 2,285 km and high-altitude Yak-3PD fighter with a ceiling of 13,500 km are built.
1944 - The Bucharest marshalling yards are bombed by heavily escorted bombers of the U.S. 15th Air Force.
A total of 20 aircraft are lost. Civilian casualties are reported to amount to 2942 killed and 2126 injured.
1939 - Bi-plane fighter Ace Joaquín García-Morato y Castaño is killed in a flying accident in front of newsreel cameras while performing low aerobatics in his personal Fiat CR.32 3-51.
He had scored all his victories save his first four with this aircraft, but this time his faithful fighter let him down when its engine failed while flying inverted. At the time of his death, Morato had 40 biplane victories. During the Spanish Civil War, he flew 1,012 hours, carried out 511 operational sorties and was involved in 56 combats. In 1950, he was posthumously given the noble title of Count of the Jarama.
1933 - Navy airship USS Akron (ZRS-4) crashed off the Barnegat Lightship in New Jersey, killing 73 people in one of the first air disasters in history.
The search employed over 20 Coast Guard vessels under Navy supervision. The Akron was the largest airship built in the United States when it took its first flight in August 1931. In its short life of less than two years, it was involved in two fatal accidents.
In 1932, the Akron made a flight from New Jersey to the Camp Kearny military base, near San Diego, California. It attempted to land in high winds, with three groups of 30 men each assigned to help pull in the blimp and secure it to the ground with ropes. But the Akron, which was filled with helium, began to rise again after the sailors had begun to secure it. Three men held on to their ropes as the Akron rose into the air; two of the three fell from 200 feet and were killed. The third man, Bud Cowart, managed to hold on at the end of the rope for two hours as the Akron dragged him 2,000 feet above the ground. Finally, the crew managed to pull him up into the airship through a porthole.
The second accident involving the Akron¹ occurred on April 4, 1933, while the U.S. Navy was using the airship to obtain some technical data over New Jersey. It was well-known that dirigibles could experience problems in bad weather, but despite the violent thunderstorms in the area that day, the Akron was not grounded. While in the air over the Atlantic Ocean, a miscommunication over directions by crew members sent the Akron directly into the storm instead of around it. The storm’s winds caused the ship to plunge nearly 1,000 feet in a few seconds.
The crew then made its second mistake: the blimp’s water ballast was dumped in order to make the flying ship rise. However, the ballast dump thrust the Akron up too far, too fast. Critical devices and cables were destroyed and all control was lost. The Akron plunged into the ocean.
The rescue airship J-3 was sent to help the Akron crew. It also crashed in of the storm, killing two of the seven crew members on board. Only three of the Akron's 76 crew members survived the disaster. One of the survivors was the commander who had ordered the fateful ballast dump.
This was the deadliest air disaster since the crash of the first rigid airship built in the United States, the Shenandoah, which killed 14 people on September 3, 1925.
1932 - The Russian Pacific fleet's aviation arm is formed.
1930 - The American Interplanetary Society was founded by G. Edward Pendray, David Lasser, Laurence Manning and others. Its was known as the American Rocket Society from April 6, 1934. Through the 1930s, the group designed an experimental test stand and tested liquid-fuelled rockets. Their pioneering work led the way to the United States space program.
Their ARS-4 rocket, was the first launched in America to break the sound barrier September 9, 1934. It was fired from from Marine Park, Staten Island, N.Y., reached a top speed of 700 mph, travelled to a maxium height of 400-ft and a horizontal range of 1,600-ft. In early 1963, it merged with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
1914 - In Moscow, A.M. Gaber-Vlynskiy, chief pilot of the Duks factory, demonstrates for the first time anywhere in Russia a complete aerobatic routine.
1907 - Santos-Dumont, disappointed by his failure on March 27 and shocked by Charles Voisin’s flight of 197 feet shortly afterwards, tries again with his Nº 14bis. He makes a short flight of 164 feet in Saint-Cyr, France.
1901 - Birth of test pilot V.A. Stepanchenok.
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¹ Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, head of the navy's Bureau of Aeronautics during its first, formative decade was one of those lost in the crash. William Moffett did more to advance air power within the military than Billy Mitchell. He became one of the navy's most successful peacetime innovators during hte twentieth century, rivaled only by Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the post-WW II "nuclear navy." As an old battleship man himself, Moffett did not seem as threatening to naval traditionalists as an outsider like Billy Mitchell did--yet the implications of Moffett's innovations were just as radical.
Moffett's initial success was the completion in 1922 of the Langley, an 11,050-ton converted collier that became America's first aircraft carrier. Moffett then successfully lobbied for the conversion of two cruisers into 36,000-ton aircraft carriers Saratoga and Lexington. Among the biggest and fastest in the world when they were commissioned in 1927, they had eight-hundred-foot flight decks and could carry eighty-three planes each.
Moffett turned a navy aircraft factory in Philadelphia into a research and development center and got the navy out of the business of aircraft production, which was contracted out to private firms. Under his guidance, the Philadelphia center worked out innovations such as turntable catapults to launch airplanes and tail hooks and restraining wires to stop them from sliding off the flight deck. His researchers also developed and air-cooled radial engine that greatly enhanced aircraft performance.
Perhaps his most lasting legacy was convincing Congress that all air commands, including aircraft carriers, had to be restricted to fliers--a requirement that lured a number of ambitious captains, such as Ernest J. King and William F. Halsey, Jr., into taking courses to qualify as aviators or observers.
He was passionately attached to airships. He even envisioned using them as airborne aircraft carriers. He was onboard one, the Akron, in 1933 when it crashed off the New Jersey coast.
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² It was named after the British Naval research vessel HMS Challenger that sailed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans during the 1870s.
Cut and Paste Aviation Archive
2 comments:
The following women were killed in the crash, outside Saigon, of the C5-A Galaxy transporting Vietnamese children out of the country on April 4, 1975. All of the women were working for various U.S. government agencies in Saigon at the time of their deaths with the exception of Theresa Drye (a child) and Laurie Stark (a teacher). Sharon Wesley had previously worked for both the American Red Cross and Army Special Services. She chose to stay on in Vietnam after the pullout of U.S. military forces in 1973.
Barbara Adams | Clara Bayot | Nova Bell | Arleta Bertwell | Helen Blackburn | Ann Bottorff | Celeste Brown | Vivienne Clark | Juanita Creel | Mary Ann Crouch | Dorothy Curtiss | Twila Donelson | Helen Drye | Theresa Drye | Mary Lyn Eichen | Elizabeth Fugino | Ruthanne Gasper | Beverly Herbert | Penelope Hindman | Vera Hollibaugh | Dorothy Howard | Barbara Kauvulia | Barbara Maier | Rebecca Martin | Sara Martini | Martha Middlebrook | Katherine Moore | Marta Moschkin | Marion Polgrean | June Poulton | Joan Pray | Sayonna Randall | Anne Reynolds | Marjorie Snow | Laurie Stark | Barbara Stout | Doris Jean Watkins | Sharon Wesley
Re: Poll on Airport Security Fee
The TSA’s system is reactionary, and stupid. How about a thorough revision of the present security system for cutting costs. For example, the coded alert system that airport blare over their PAs is completely irrelevant. All the time, an orange alert is in place. Who cares? It has become meaningless. Cut out this constant warnings would save a small amount of electricity and manpower.
What about the liberal number of TSA employees stationed at every airport? When was the last time the TSA audited its staff, which was built up in the post-9-11 years? What about the efficacy of plainsclothes policeman (more common in Great Britain). Has anyone considered using the National Guard for airport security instead, now that military enrollment is up again? Finally, is the shoe and liquid thing relevant at every airport in the US, even for domestic flights?
A blind tax hike is a dumb solution to a problem that needs to be assessed, audited, and reorganized. The onus is on the government to do that, not the taxpayer, not the airlines. This was a Bush-era bloat problem that is ready to be revised. The Obama team needs to take a careful look at where to avoid taxes, and the nation’s airports are practically a giveaway place to start.
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