2009 – Divi Divi Air Flight 014, a Britten-Norman Islander (PJ-SUN), with 10 on board, ditches in the Caribbean Sea off Bonaire due to engine failure, killing the pilot. The 9 passengers on board survived.
2009 – A United States Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk Helicopter while on a routine training exercise crashes onto the deck of the USNS Arctic off the coast of Fort Story, Virginia Beach, Virginia. The Black Hawk helicopter from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) was on a joint exercise with the United States Navy SEALs and was practising fast maritime interdiction by rappelling by rope to the ship's deck when the accident occurred killing 1 crew and injuring a further 8 service personnel.
1996 – Million Air Flight 406, a Boeing 707-323 C with 4 people aboard, crashes into a Dolorosa neighborhood ripping off rooftops and crashing in flames into a restaurant, killing the 4 aboard, 30 in the neighborhood and injuring 50 Ecuador.
1986 – WNBC traffic reporter Jane Dornacker is killed when the helicopter she is riding in stalls and crashes into the Hudson River.
1981 – The United States Federal Labor Relations Authority votes to de-certify the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization for its strike the previous August.
1968 – Apollo program – Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
1963 – The 1963BAC One-Eleven test crash occurred when a BAC One-Eleven (registration G-ASHG) took off from Wisley Airfield. There were seven crew on board the aircraft, the pilot was Mike Lithgow. The BAC One-Eleven was on a test flight to see how the aircraft assess stability and handling characteristics during the approach to, and recovery from the stall with a centre of gravity in varying positions. The aircraft was on its fifth stalling test. Then the flight crew put the BAC One-Eleven at a height of about 16000 feet and with 8 deg of flaps, the plane entered a stable stall. The aircraft began to descend at a high vertical speed, and in a substantially horizontal attitude and eventually struck the ground with very little forward speed. The aircraft broke up and caught fire, killing all seven crew on board. The crash site was near Chicklade, a small village in Wiltshire and near the A303 road.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis – US President John F. Kennedy announces that American spy planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the island nation.
1958 – British European Airways Flight 142, a Vickers Viscount, collides with an Italian Air Force North American F-86 Sabre over Italy, all 31 on board died.
1956 – No. 401 Squadron (Auxiliary) was first of six auxiliary squadrons to be equipped with North American Sabre fighters.
1956 – An officer exchange program was inaugurated between the RAAF and the RCAF.
1953 – The 85th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Scott AFB, Illinois, suffers its first fatal North American F-86D Sabre loss when Maj. Yancey Williams crashes after takeoff from Runway 14 in F-86D-20-NA, 51-3029. Williams attempts to turn to the northwest, overshoots the approach to Runway 36, and then attempts a landing in a cornfield west of the base. He almost made it, but the Sabre strikes an electric transformer pole and explodes. The accident investigation shows that the Sabre had a hydraulic elevator control lock due to a misconnecting of hydraulic lines. Williams had been the squadron Material Officer.
1948 – On fifth flight of the second prototype McDonnell XF-85 Goblinparasite fighter, 45-524, McDonnell test pilot Edwin F. Schoch unhooks from trapeze carried on Boeing EB-29B Superfortress, 44-84111, named "Monstro", and for the first time retracts the small fighter's nose hook in flight. But when he extends it to reconnect with the mothership, buffeting over the open nose hook well (previously flown taped closed) causes the Goblin to be too unstable for reconnection. The hook is broken in the attempts, and Schoch belly lands on the dry lake at Muroc Air Force Base for the second time. This was the last flight of the second prototype.
1944 – Second of only two Bell XP-77-BE lightweight fighters completed out of a contract for six, 43-34916, crashes when pilot attempts an Immelmann turn resulting in an inverted spin during testing at the Air Proving Ground, Eglin Field, Florida. Pilot Barney E. Turner bails out.
1942 – (overnight) In support of Allied operations in North Africa, Royal Air Force Bomber Command mounts the first of 14 night attacks against targets in Italy, the last of which is flown on the night of December 11-12. The series of raids consists of night attacks on Genoa, Milan, and Turin and one daylight raid against Turin. Dispatching 1,752 sorties against Italian targets, it loses only 31 bombers (1.8 percent). During the same period, Bomber Command flies only five major night attacks against Germany.
1940 – S/L EA McNab, No. 1 Squadron, was awarded the DFC for services in the Battle of Britain.
1938 – Lieutenant Colonel Mario Pezzi of Italy sets a world altitude record of 17,083 m (56,047 feet) in a Caproni Ca.161bis. This record still stands for piston-engined aircraft.
1938 – The Heinkel He 100B V4 flies a number of times before its landing gear collapses while standing on the pad on this date. The aircraft will be rebuilt and returns to flying by March 1939.
1929 – 886 acres were assembled near Trenton, Ontario for a new RCAF Station to replace Camp Borden as the principal station. It includes a much needed seaplane facility.
1926 – Curtiss F6 C Hawk fighters of the United States Navy's Fighter Squadron 2 (VF-2) surprise U. S. Navy capital ships sortieing from San Pedro Harbor, California, with a simulated dive-bombing attack, diving almost vertically from 12,000 feet (3,658 m). It generally is considered the birth of modern dive bombing.
1922 – 1st Lt. Harold Ross Harris (1897–1988) becomes the first member of the U.S. Army Air Service to save his life by parachute, when the Loening PW-2A, (probably AS-64388), he is testing out of McCook Field, Ohio, suffers vibration, loses part of left wing or aileron, so he parts company with the airframe, landing safely. Two sources gives the date as 20 October. McCook Field personnel create the "Caterpillar Club" for those whose lives are saved by parachute bail-out with Harris the plank-holding member.
1909 – Baroness Raymonde de Laroche flies in a fixed-wing aircraft. (See also September 1908).
1898 – Augustus Herring pilots a powered biplane based on Octave Chanute's glider design.
1797, André-Jacques Garnerin jumps from a balloon from 3,200 feet over Monceau Park in Paris in a 23-foot-diameter parachute made of white canvas with a basket attached. He was declared "official French aeronaut of the state".
