Portal:Aviation/Anniversaries/June 14

June 15

• 2013 – First Flight of the Airbus A350 XWB (registration F-WXWB) at Toulouse–Blagnac Airport, Toulouse, France.
• 2013 – Solar Impulse aircraft HB-SIA begins the fourth leg of its flight across the continental United States, flying a 678-kilometer (421-mile) segment from Lambert–St. Louis International Airport outside St. Louis, Missouri, to Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, in 15 hours 14 minutes at an average speed of 44.5 km/h (27.6 mph) and reaching a maximum altitude of 3,048 meters (10,000 feet). The 11-hour stop at Cincinnati during the trip to Washington Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., is inserted into the itinerary because of strong cross- and headwinds forecast for the flight and a legal requirement that the aircraft's pilot not exceed 24 hours continuously in the air; it also affords the Solar Impulse ground crew an opportunity to practice supporting the aircraft during stops planned on short notice.
• 2011 – NATO aircraft strike Waddan, Libya.
• 2011 – In response to Libya firing rockets into its territory, Tunisia flies a helicopter and a Tunisian Air Force F-5 Freedom Fighter along its border with Libya.
• 2011 – (Overnight) NATO jets resume airstrikes on Tripoli after a lull in such raids, bombarding mainly its eastern neighborhoods.
• 2009 – Express Air Flight 9000, a Dornier 328, registration PK-TXN, veers off the runway on landing at Tanah Merah Airport, Indonesia. The aircraft is substantially damaged.
• 2009 – A Royal Air Force Grob Tutor collided with a glider near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, killing a reservist pilot and a cadet. The glider pilot parachuted to safety.
• 1988 – First flight of the Sikorsky S-333
• 1985 – TWA Flight 847, a Boeing 727, is hijacked by Lebanese militants. One passenger is murdered during the three-day ordeal.
• 1982 – Argentinan forces surrender to English forces on the Falkland Islands. During their war, the English had destroyed 109 Argentinian planes, compared to only 10 lost by the British.
• 1982 – First flight of the Beechcraft Lightning
• 1972 – Japan Airlines Flight 471, a Japan Airlines flight from Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand to Palam International Airport (now Indira Gandhi International Airport) in New Delhi, India. The Douglas DC-8-53 used crashed outside of the New Delhi airport, killing 82 of 87 occupants; 10 of 11 crew members and 72 of 76 passengers died, and 3 people on the ground died. 16 of the dead were Americans. Brazilian actress Leila Diniz was also among the killed.
• 1967 – Mariner V launched from Cape Kennedy on a flight past Venus.
• 1957 – HMCS Magnificent was paid off and returned to the Royal Navy.
• 1950 – An Air France Douglas DC-4, F-BBDM, crashes in the Arabian Sea while on approach to Bahrain Airport, killing 40 of 53 on board. This aircraft was operating on the same flight route as F-BBDE.
• 1947 – A Boeing B-29A-70-BN Superfortress, 44-62228, of the 64th Bombardment Squadron, 43rd Bombardment Group, off-course in stormy weather, slammed into the granite face of Hawks Mountain a few hundred feet below its 2,300 foot crest, near Springfield, Vermont just before midnight, killing all eleven crew. The bomber, based at Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, Arizona, had refueled at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was bound for Bedford, Massachusetts when it apparently became lost. Local residents reported hearing it circle over Springfield and nearby Perkinsville shortly before impact and seeing it blinking its lights at an altitude of 1,000 feet or less.
• 1945 – First flight of the Avro Tudor, the first British pressurized civilian aircraft
• 1944 – First B-29 raid against mainland Japan took place on the night of 15-16 Jun 1944 with 75 XX Bomber Command B-29s flying from China to attack the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata in northern Kyūshū.
• 1944 – June 14-15 (overnight), flying a Mosquito of 605 Sqn, Flt Lt J G Musgrave became first pilot to shoot down a V1 flying bomb.
• 1944 – To disrupt attacks on the Normandy invasion force by small German naval craft, Royal Air Force Bomber Command strikes the harbor at Le Havre, France, just before midnight, sinking the German torpedo boats Falke, Jaguar, and Möwe, 10 S-boats, 15 R-boats, several patrol and harbor vessels, and 11 other small craft and badly damaging other vessels.
• 1944 – (14–15) Task Force 58 carrier aircraft strike the Volcano Islands, Guam, Saipan, and Tinian.
• 1943 – Boeing B-17C Flying Fortress, 40-2072, "Miss E.M.F." (Every Morning Fixing), of the 19th Bomb Group, heavily damaged on Davao mission 25 December 1941 and converted into transport. With 46th Troop Carrier Squadron, 317th Troop Carrier Group, crashed Bakers Creek, Queensland, Australia, this date while ferrying troops to New Guinea. Six crew and 34 GIs killed. One survived. (see Bakers Creek air crash) A memorial to the victims of this crash was installed at the Selfridge Gate of Arlington National Cemetery on 11 June 2009, donated by the Bakers Creek Memorial Association. The gate is named for Lt. Thomas Selfridge, killed in a 1908 crash at Fort Myer, Virginia, the first victim of a powered air accident.
• 1943 – Accompanying a raid by 197 British Lancaster bombers against Oberhausen, Germany, five British Beaufighter night fighters make the first operational use of Serrate, a radar detector and homing device that allows them to home in on German night fighters employing the Lichtenstein airborne radar from up to 80 km (50 mi) away and intercept them. The Beaufighters do not intercept any German aircraft during the raid, however, and 17 British bombers are lost.
• 1942 – (14-16) German and Italian aircraft join Italian surface warships and submarines in opposing Operation Harpoon, an Allied Malta resupply convoy from Gibraltar escorted by the British aircraft carriers HMS Argus and HMS Furious, and Operation Vigorous, a simultaneous resupply convoy from Alexandria, Egypt; Royal Air Force and U. S. Army Air Forces aircraft from Malta and North Africa provide support to the convoys. Before the remnants of the Harpoon convoy arrive at Malta and the Vigorous convoy turns back to Alexandria, Axis aircraft sink three merchant cargo ships, fatally damage three destroyers, a cargo ship, and a tanker, and damage the British light cruisers HMS Birmingham and HMS Liverpool. Royal Air Force Beaufort torpedo bombers knock the Italian battleship Littorio out of action for two months, and disable the Italian heavy cruiser Trento, allowing a British subarine to sink her.
• 1941 – Ground broken for Boeing Plant II (ex-AFLC Plant 13) Wichita, KS.
• 1940 – In the Kaleva shootdown, an Aero Junkers Ju 52/3mge flying from Tallinn, Estonia to Helsinki, Finland is shot down by two Soviet bombers over the Gulf of Finland during peacetime; all nine aboard die.
• 1938 – First flight of the Hawker Hotspur
• 1937 – German aircraft of the Condor Legion strafe refugees from Bilbao as they flee along the road to Santander.
• 1934 – United States Navy Curtiss XSBC-1 Helldiver, BuNo 9225, crashed at Lancaster, New York. Rebuilt, it will crash again in September.
• 1929 – In efforts to encourage passenger traffic for their expanding international air routes, British Imperial Airways makes the first 30-minute “tea” flight over London, costing £2 2 s, reduced 1931 to £1 10 s.
• 1923 – New Zealand forms its first military aviation services, fore-runners of the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
• 1919 – Cpt John Alcock and Lt Arthur Whitten Brown set out on the first successful non-stop Atlantic crossing, flying a Vickers Vimy from Newfoundland to Ireland in 16 hours. They win £10,000 from the Daily Mail and are both knighted.
• 1917 – Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H.12 Large America flying boat 8677 shoots down the German Zeppelin L.43.
• 1903 – Arthur William Raynes McDonald, radar pioneer/pilot, was born.