2009 – D-ALCO, a McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 operated by Lufthansa Cargo is severely damaged in a heavy landing at Mexico City International Airport. Post landing inspection revealed that there were wrinkles in the fuselage skin and the nose gear was bent. It is reported that the aircraft may be written off.
2009 – An Israeli Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16A Block 10A Fighting Falcon 140, ex-78-0337, from the Nevatim Israeli Air Force Base, Beersheba, Israel crashes near the P'nei Chever settlement in the Southern Hebron Hills at 1345 hrs. killing the pilot. The incident occurred during military training including a simulated dogfight with another aircraft. During a sharp turn, the pilot Captain Assaf Ramon the only son Colonel Ilan Ramon who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, suffered either loss of consciousness or mechanical failure leading to the crash.
2001 – Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the U. S. after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
1997 – Luftwaffe Tupolev Tu-154M, 11+02, c/n 813, call sign GAF 074, of 1 Staffel/FBS (Flugbereitschaft), used for Open Skies treaty verification, collided with a USAF Lockheed C-141B Starlifter, 65-9405, call sign REACH 4201, of the 305th AMW, about 120 km (75 mi) W of the coast of Namibia over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 24 aboard the Tu-154 and all nine on the C-141. Accident investigations by both countries, released 31 March 1998, found that the Tu-154 was flying at the wrong altitude, 35,000 feet (11,600 m.) instead of 39,000 feet (12,900 m.), and was thus primarily at fault. Contributory factor was chronically poor ATC in the area.
1982 – Spantax Flight 995, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30CF, is destroyed by fire after an aborted take-off at Málaga, Spain; fifty of the 294 on board die.
1974 – The U. S. Air Force SR-71 Blackbird 61-17972, flown by Captain Harold B. “Buck” Adams (pilot) and Major William C. Machorek (reconnaissance systems officer), flies 5,447 miles (8,771 km) from London to Los Angeles in a world record 3 hours 47 min 39 seconds at an average speed of 1,435.59 mph (2,311.74 km/h).
1971 – Lin Biao, second-in-charge of the People’s Republic of China, is killed in the crash of a Hawker Siddeley Trident near Öndörkhaan, Mongolia.
1955 – Six people were killed when a North American B-25 suffered engine failure on takeoff from Mitchel Field, NY, and crashed into Greenfield Cemetery, Hempstead, NY.
1946 – Major General Paul Bernard Wurtsmith (9 August 1906 – 13 September 1946), of Strategic Air Command, is killed when his North American TB-25J-27-NC Mitchell, 44-30227, of the 326th Base Unit, MacDill Field, Florida, crashes at ~1130 hrs. into Cold Mountain near Asheville, North Carolina. In February 1953, the United States Air Force named Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda Township, Michigan, in his honor.
1944 – The first Supermarine Spiteful prototype, NN660, a converted Spitfire XIV, first flown 30 June 1944, returning from flight from the A&AEE, Boscombe Down, crashes this date while in unplanned mock combat with a Spitfire at low altitude, killing test pilot Frank Furlong. No reason for the loss is officially established, although after an incident that happened to him, Jeffrey Quill suggests it may have been due to the Spiteful's aileron control rods sticking - previous Sptifires had used cables. Control rods are checked for binding in all future Spitefuls and the problem does not re-occur. Quill had chosen Furlong for his test team after they had flown together during the Battle of Britain.
1943 – Off Salerno, the American light cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) avoids two German guided bombs, but a guided bomb badly damages the British light cruiser HMS Uganda and another fatally damages a British hospital ship During the evening, 82 C-47 Skytrains and C-53 Skytroopers flying from Sicily drop 600 paratroopers of the United States Army’s 82nd Airborne Division behind Allied lines in the Salerno beachhead.
1942 – U. S. Army Air Forces bombers fly a 1,200-mile (1,900 km) round-trip raid against Japanese forces at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands from Umnak for the last time. They will begin flying raids from Adak, 400 miles (640 km) closer to Kiska, the following day.
1940 – The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Mitsubishi A6 M Zero fighter scores its first aerial victories, when a flight of Zeroes attacks 27 Nationalist Chinese fighters over Chungking and claims to have destroyed all of them; actual Chinese losses probably are 13 to 24 aircraft. No Zeroes are lost.
1935 – Millionaire film producer and amateur air racer Howard Hughes shattered the world land plane speed record in his home built Hughes Racer airplane.
1928 – In an effort to speed up the time it takes for mail to reach the United States via Europe, a single-engined Liore et Oliver LeO 198 airplane is catapulted off the Ile de France ocean liner, reducing the time it takes mail to reach the United States by one whole day.
1913 – Aurel Vlaicu, Romanian engineer and inventor, dies near Câmpina, Romania, while attempting to fly across the Carpathian Mountains in his Vlaicu II airplane.
1906 – Traian Vuia flies a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft becoming the first fixed wing aircraft to fly in Europe.
1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully flies his Santos-Dumont 14-bis aircraft at Château de Bagatelle, for the first time.
