Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/November 12

November 12

• 2009 – RwandAir Flight 205, a Bombardier CRJ-100, crashes into a terminal shortly after an emergency landing at Kigali International Airport, Rwanda; of the 10 passengers and 5 crew, 1 passenger dies.

• 2008 – A USAF F-16 caught fire on takeoff. The pilot survived.

• 2004 – UH-60A Black Hawk from 1–106th Aviation Regiment shot down northeast of Baghdad, wounding three of the four crew members.

• 2001 – American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300, crashes into a Queens neighborhood in New York City when the plane's vertical tail fin snaps just after takeoff. All 251 passengers and nine crew members on board are killed as well as five people on the ground.

• 1996 – Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision: Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 763, a Boeing 747, collides in mid-air with Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907, an Ilyushin Il-76, near Charkhi Dadri, India. All 312 on board the Boeing 747 and all 37 on board the Ilyushin Il-76 are killed.

• 1995 – American Airlines Flight 1572, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 with 78 people on board, lands short of the runway at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. Only one person is injured.

• 1995 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-74 at 7:30:43.071 a.m. EST. Mission highlights: 2nd Shuttle-Mir docking. Delivered docking module. IMAX cargo bay camera.

• 1989 – California Polytechnic State University flies the first human-powered helicopter

• 1984 – Space Shuttle astronauts snare a satellite, the first ever “space salvage. ”

• 1983 – McDonnell-Douglas F-15A-16-MC Eagle, 76-076, c/n 0265/A228, of the 71st Tactical Fighter Squadron, 1st Tactical Fighter Wing, jumps chocks during an engine run at Langley AFB, Virginia, and collides with F-15, 76-071, c/n 0259/A223, of the same units. Both are repaired. 76-076 is later placed on display in park near DeBary, Florida, marked as 85-0125, in memory of an airman killed in the Khobar Towers terrorist bombing.

• 1981 – Launch: Space shuttle Columbia STS-2 at 15:09:59 UTC. Mission highlights: First reuse of a manned orbital space vehicle; first test of Canadarm robot arm; Truncated due to fuel cell problem.

• 1980 – Delta Air Lines orders 60 Boeing 757s, the largest single order to this time for a single airliner type.

• 1980 – Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to Saturn, flying 77,000 miles above its surface and taking photo of its rings.

• 1970 – First flight of the Kawasaki C-1

• 1944 – 29 Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster bombers employing 12,000-pound (5,443 kg) Tallboy bombs score two hits on the German battleship Tirpitz at Altenfjord, Norway, sinking her with heavy loss of life.

• 1943 – A strike by five Japanese Mitsubishi G4 M (“Betty”) bombers damages the light cruiser USS Denver (CL-58) off Bougainville.

• 1941 – The British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is sunk in the Mediterranean Sea east of Gibraltar by the German submarine U-81.

• 1932 – First flight of the de Havilland Dragon

• 1922 – Japan's first airmail service commences, linking Sakai, Osaka and Tokushima.

• 1922 – Lt. Cdr. Godfrey DeCourcelles Chevalier, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in June 1910, who was appointed a Naval Air Pilot No. 7 on 7 November 1915 and a Naval Aviator No. 7 on 7 November 1918, crashes in a Vought VE-7 while en route from NAS Norfolk to Yorktown, Virginia, dying in Portsmouth Naval Hospital on 14 November as a result of his injuries. On 26 October 1922 Lieutenant Commander Chevalier made the first landing on the USS Langley's deck, the U.S. Navy's first aircraft carrier, in an Aeromarine 39-B, A-606.

• 1921 – The first air-to-air refueling was made when Wesley May stepped from the wing of one aircraft to that of another carrying a five-gallon can of gasoline strapped to his back.

• 1919 – Keith and Ross Smith set out to fly a Vickers Vimy, G-EAOU, from England to Australia, the first flight between these two places. They arrive in Darwin on December 18.

• 1912 – A Curtiss Triad becomes the first aircraft to be launched by catapult, at the US Navy's Washington Navy Yard.

• 1912 – The first demonstration of naval aircraft at an Imperial Japanese Navy fleet review takes place at Yokohama, with Lieutenant Yōzō Kaneko flying a Farman seaplane and Lieutenant Sankichi Kōno a Curtiss seaplane.

• 1906 – First flight certified and registered by FAI: Brazilian Alberto Santos Dumont in Paris in his “14 bis” flies some 720 feet and wins the Aéro-Club de France prize for exceeding 100 m.

• 1903 – The Lebaudy brothers make a controlled dirigible flight of 54 km (34 miles) from Moisson to Paris.