Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/May 15

May 15

• 2010 – A Blue Wing Airlines Antonov An-28 crashed shortly after take-off from Godo Holo Airstrip killing all eight on board.

• 2009 – A Fuerza Aérea Colombiana Dassault Mirage 5COAM (FAC-3031) on a routine training flight from the Comando Aéreo de Combate No. 1, crashed shortly after take-off from the Palanquero airbase, Puerto Salgar, Cundinamarca Department, Colombia. The aircraft from the Escuadrón de Combate 112 suffered a technical fault causing a fire which forced the pilot to successfully eject from the plane without injury.

• 2009 – An Indian Air Force Mikoyan MiG-27 Flogger crashed shortly after take-off and the pilot successfully ejected from the aircraft. The accident occurred near the Konkani village, Jodhpur, India and resulted in injuries to 7 local villagers.

• 2008 – Aloha Air Cargo commenced operations as an independent airline after Aloha Airlines ceased operations.

• 2000 – Helios Airways commences airline operations.

• 1997 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-125 at 4:07:48.62 am EST. Mission highlights: Shuttle-Mir docking.

• 1989 – US Navy North American CT-39E Sabreliner, BuNo 158383, 'JK', of VRC-40, NAS Norfolk, Virginia, runs off runway at Andrews AFB, Maryland, at 1100 hrs. Crew of four and one passenger uninjured.

• 1987 – The Soviet Union launches the Polyus spacecraft prototype orbital weapons platform. It fails to reach orbit.

• 1984 – First flight of the AMX International AMX

• 1981 – Prototype of an improved variant PZL-106 Kruk (Polish agricultural aircraft) was flown with redesigned wings using shorter struts.

• 1975 – Birth of Dorothy Marie "Dottie" Metcalf-Lindenburger, Nasa Astronaut.

• 1975 – Eight U. S. Air Force helicopters carry a force of U. S. Marines in an assault on Cambodia’s Koh Tang island in an attempt to rescue the crew of Mayaguez; three are shot down. U. S. Navy Grumman A-6 Intruder and A-7E Corsair II bombers and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighters from the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) strike Ream airfield and targets at Kompong Som in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge releases the Mayaguez crew, which actually is being held at Rong Som Lem island.

• 1970 – The Dymshits – Kuznetsov aircraft hijacking affair (Leningrad Process) was an attempt to hijack a civilian aircraft by a group of Soviet refuseniks in order to escape to the West.

• 1967 – Over Malden Island in the south Pacific, a British Vickers Valiant piloted by Kenneth Hubbard drops the nation’s first nuclear bomb in a test called Operation Grapple. Designed to yield a one megaton explosion, the bomb fails to detonate properly and only disperses about 300 kilotons.

• 1965 – The U. S. Navy deploys its first aircraft carrier to Dixie Station in the South China Sea off South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. It is a single-carrier station for the provision of air support in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and will remain in use until August 1966.

• 1963 – Launch of Mercury-Atlas 9, final manned space mission of the U. S. Mercury program, The spacecraft, named Faith 7, completed 22 Earth orbits before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, piloted by astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper (alias 'Gordo'). It was Cooper's first Space Flight.

• 1962 – During refuelling at Whiteman AFB, Missouri, Boeing B-47E-135-BW Stratojet, 53-6230, of 340th Bomb Wing catches fire, 10,000 gallons of fuel ignite. Four firemen are killed and 18 others injured when fireball engulfs all within 100 feet of burning aircraft.

• 1960 – Launch of Korabl-Sputnik 1 (also known as Sputnik 4 in the West) was the first test flight of the Soviet Vostok programme, and the first Vostok (spacecraft).

• 1958 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3. It carried a large array of instruments for geophysical research. Its tape recorder failed, making it unable to measure the Van Allen radiation belts.

• 1957 – First flight of The Miles Student M.100, lightweight trainer.

• 1957 – A Royal Air Force Vickers Valiant drops the first British Hydrogen bomb, over Christmas Island.

• 1956 – Fifth Lockheed U-2A, Article 345, 56-6678, delivered to the CIA on 16 December 1955, crashes at Groom Lake, Nevada, killing Agency pilot Wilburn S. "Billy" Rose. Aircraft had just departed Groom with a full fuel load, but an underwing pogo hung up. Pilot attempted to return to try to shake it loose, but let angle of bank increase too much and fully fuelled starboard wing kept dropping.

• 1956 – A RCAF Avro CF-100 Mk. IVB Canuck, 18367, of 445 Squadron, out of CFB Uplands, falling from 33,000 feet (10,000 m) crashed into Villa St. Louis, a convent of the Grey Nuns of the Cross in Orleans, Ontario, Canada at roughly 2300 hrs. (reports vary). 15 people were killed; both crewmen of the aircraft, a priest, 11 nuns and one other woman.

• 1953 – An errant United States Air Force Republic F-84E-30-RE Thunderjet, 51-628, of the 22d Fighter-Bomber Squadron, 36th Fighter-Bomber Group, collides with two USAF C-119 Flying Boxcars of the 10th Troop Carrier Squadron, 60th Troop Carrier Group, flying in formation near Weinheim, Germany, sending all three planes down in flames. Fairchild C-119C Flying Boxcar, 51-8235, was struck by the fighter, which then hit struck C-119C, 51-8241, three Flying Boxcar crew killed, three injured. F-84 pilot James W. Chilton parachutes to safety.

• 1948 – Tel Aviv is attacked by the Egyptian Air Force. The Israeli Air Force retaliates by striking Arab troops near Samakh.

• 1945 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Emperor attack the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro in the Indian Ocean, but achieve only one near-miss.

• 1944 – Ex-RAF de Havilland Mosquito B.IV, DK296, formerly flown by 105 Squadron as 'GB-G', delivered to the Soviet Union for testing on 19 April 1944 by Soviet flight crew, is written off this date in landing accident at Sverdlovsk when pilot A. I. Kabanov loses control with engines at low power setting, turns to port, runs off runway, shears off undercarriage and skids to a stop on its belly. Pilot and navigator P. I. Perevalov unhurt. This was the ninth flight of DK296 (which never received a Soviet serial) since it arrived in Russia and was the only Mosquito delivered to Russia. Kabanov was the Deputy Director of the Scientific Research Institute of the Air Force at this time, and had much experience flying foreign types

• 1944 – A raid by Fairey Barracuda from the British aircraft carriers HMS Furious and HMS Victorious against German battleship Tirpitz anchored in Norway is recalled due to heavy cloud cover over the target area.

• 1941 – Frank Whittle’s jet engined plane, the Gloster E.28/39, the first British jet, flew for the first time. Whittle had built his first engine in 1935 and completed a successful test in 1937.

• 1941 – 15-16 – Iraqi and German aircraft attack a British column moving into Iraq from Palestine.

• 1940 – 15-16 – British bombers make their first attack on German land targets, in the Ruhr Valley.

• 1940 – During British evacuation and demolition operations in Dutch ports, German dive bombers attack the British destroyer HMS Valentine, which is beached and wrecked at the mouth of the Scheldt.

• 1940 – (Overnight) Royal Air Force Bomber Command conducts its first strategic bombing raid of World War II, as 99 Handley Page Hampden, Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, and Vickers Wellington bombers strike German targets in the Ruhr Valley. One British bomber was lost.

• 1936 – British aviation pioneer Amy Johnson returns to England after a record-breaking flight to South Africa in a Percival Gull (G-ADZO).

• 1930 – Ellen Church becomes the world's first flight attendant, working for Boeing Air Transport.

• 1930 – Cleveland Municipal Airport was the first airport with radio air traffic control.

• 1928 – Rev John Flynn founds the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia at Cloncurry, Queensland, using a de Havilland DH.50. The service takes medical services to remote parts of the Australian bush.

• 1928 – In a preview shown at a Los Angeles movie theater, Mickey Mouse makes his debut in a cartoon called Plane Crazy, an animated homage to Charles Lindbergh. Walt Disney fails to find a distributor for his first Mickey cartoon until March 1929, five months after Steamboat Willie‘s release. Despite Plane Crazy being produced earlier, Disney considers Steamboat Willie to be Mickey Mouse’s debut.

• 1925 – Entered into service: Junkers G.23 with Swedish Air Lines.

• 1923 – First course of Provisional Pilot Officers began training at Camp Borden.

• 1922 – Instone Air Line commences flights between London and Brussels.

• 1921 – Laura Bromwell loops in New York State 199 times in 1 h, 20 min, setting a new women’s record for consecutive loops.

• 1919 – An intercity air route between Chicago and Cleveland is inaugurated by the United States Post Office.

• 1919 – The U.S. Post Office Department begins its first air mail service operations between Chicago and Cleveland, later extended to New York and San Francisco. An Airco DH.4 carried the mail.

• 1918 – First flight of the Packard-Le Peré LUSAC-11.

• 1918 – The first regular US airmail service commences, between New York and Washington, DC. The first flight is made by Lt Geoffrey Boyle in a Curtiss JN-4H.

• 1793 – Spanish inventor Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider nearly 1/4 mile in one of the first human attempts at flight.