2012 – The Turkish Air Force scrambles fighters to protect Turkish airspace after a Syrian Air Force plane drops two bombs on rebel positions in Syria about 300 yards (274 meters) from the border with Turkey, killing at least 10 people and causing Syrian civilians to flee across the border to safety in Turkey.[1]
2012 – Egyptair orders a Cairo, Egypt-to-Damascus, Syria, flight to turn back in mid-air because of concerns over the security situation around Damascus International Airport.[2]
2006 – CH-46E Sea Knight from HMM-165 carrying 16 personnel made an emergency landing on Lake Qadisiyah in Al Anbar Province. Four of the passengers drowned in the incident.[3][4]
2005 – XCOR Aerospace makes the first ever manned rocket aircraft delivery of US Mail in Mojave, California.
2004 – The 500th Boeing 777 is rolled out. The 777 will reach 500 airplanes delivered faster than any other twin-aisle airplane in history.
1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.
1995 – Cameroon Airlines Flight 3701, a Boeing 737, loses control and crashes while on approach to Douala International Airport; of the 76 on board, 5 survive.
1990 – Northwest Airlines Flight 1482, a Douglas DC-9, collides with Northwest Airlines Flight 299, a Boeing 727, when the crew of the Douglas aircraft mistakenly taxis onto the active runway at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. Seven passengers and one crew-member out of the 54 on board Flight 1482 perish; all on board Flight 299 survive.
1970 – 37 Squadron Special Flight 602; in Yukon 106922; flew families and members of the Quebec FLQ Organization to Cuba. Their exile to Cuba was a trade off for the release of kidnapped James Cross and exemption from prosecution for the murder of Pierre Laporte.
1960 – A fully fueled Martin XSM-68-3-MA Titan I ICBM, 58-2254, a Lot V missile, V-2, being lowered into a silo at the Operational System Test Facility, Vandenberg AFB, California, following pre-launch tests, the ninth attempt at completing this test, drops to the bottom of the underground launch tube when the elevator fails. The missile explodes, wrecking the silo, which is never repaired. No injuries were sustained, however. This was the first silo accident.
1958 – An aircraft exchange, which will function like the stock markets and commodity exchanges, opens in New York.
1951 – A Boeing B-29A-45-BN Superfortress, 44-61797, of the 3417th AMS, 3415th AMG, Lowry AFB, Colorado, piloted by James W. Shanks, trying to reach Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, with one motor not working crashed into a row of residential homes, killing eight airmen. At least one civilian and five airmen were injured. Five houses were damaged—four of them demolished.
1944 – A single U. S. Navy PBY Catalina picks up 56 survivors of the destroyer USS Cooper (DD-695) in Ormoc Bay and another rescues 48. Both loads break all previous records.
1943 – (Overnight) Japanese Rabaul-based aircraft attack U. S. ships approaching Bougainville Island.
1942 – A Vickers Wellington specially equipped bmber with electronic measuring equipment collects the frequency of the UHF-band airborne Lichtenstein radar used by German night fighters for the first time. The information will allow the British to field an operational jammer to counter the radar in late April 1943.
1934 – Charles Ulm disappears while flying over the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Oakland, California and Hawaii.
1928 – The prototype Curtiss XF8C-2, BuNo A7673, crashes, just days after its first flight.
1910 – The first multiple fatality airplane accident in history happened at Centocelle, near Rome, when Lt. Enrico Cammarota and Private S. Castellani became the 26th and 27th people to die in a plane crash.
