Today in Civil Aviation History

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July 18

1984 – Beverly Lynn Burns becomes first female Boeing 747 airline captain.

1803, Etienne Gaspar Robertson and Lhoest climb from Hamburg (Germany) up to 7,280 m in a balloon.

posted early due to upcoming holiday

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July 19

1989 - A Douglas DC-10 carrying United Airlines flight 232 crashes in Sioux City, Iowa killing 112 but due to extraordinary efforts by the pilot and his crew, 184 on board survive.

1985 - Sharon Christa McAuliffe is chosen by NASA to be the first private citizen passenger in the history of space flight.

1967 - A Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727 and a Cessna 310 collided in mid-air over Hendersonville, North Carolina killing 82.

1961 - MGM's By Love Possessed is shown on a TWA Boeing 707, the first feature film exhibited on a regularly scheduled commercial airline flight

1923 - Czechoslovakian airline CSA commences operations.

1812, lamp gas used to fill a Montgolfière (Green).

posted early due to upcoming holiday

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July 20

1935 – Switzerland: A Royal Dutch Airlines plane en route from Milan to Frankfurt crashes into a Swiss mountain, killing thirteen.

1930 - July 20-August 1, 7560 km race over Europe of the Challenge 1930 contest.

posted early due to upcoming holiday

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July 21

1932 - Wolfgang von Gronau sets out to make a round-the-world trip in a Dornier Wal. One hundred and eleven days later, it will be the first such trip made in a flying boat.

1919 - Anthony Fokker founds the Dutch Aircraft Factory at Schiphol.

1919 – The dirigible Wingfoot Air Express crashes into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, killing 12 people.

posted early due to upcoming holiday

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July 22

1983 - Dick Smith achieves the first solo circumnavigation of the globe in a helicopter. Smith makes the 56,742 kilometre (35,258 mile) journey in stages using a Bell Jetranger III named Australian Explorer.

1954 - an Air Cathay Douglas DC-4 is shot down near Hainan Island.

1931 - July 22-September 1 - Sir Alan Cobham and crew make a 19,800 km (12,300 mile) return flight between England and the Belgian Congo in a Short Valletta.

1929 - Lufthansa uses a catapult to launch a Heinkel He 12 mail plane from the passenger liner Bremen, 400 km (249 miles) out of New York, speeding the mail on its way before the ship reached port.

posted early due to upcoming holiday

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July 23

1999 – ANA Flight 61 is hijacked in Tokyo, Japan.

1984 - an Air Canada Boeing 767 runs out of fuel on its way from Montreal to Edmonton. Ground crew at the Montreal airport miscalculated the flight's length and did not put enough fuel in it. Pilot Robert Pearson, an amateur glider pilot, lands the plane safely at Gimli, making the incident famous as the "Gimli Glider".

1979 - the British government announces plans to privatise British Airways and publicly sell British Aerospace shares.

1977 - After threats of shutting down transatlantic air traffic, the U.S. and British governments reach the Bermuda II accord, giving British airlines additional ports of entry in the United States and removing American airlines' rights to carry passengers beyond London and Hong Kong.

1968 – The only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft takes place when a 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers is taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The aircraft was en route from Rome, Italy, to Lod, Israel.

1932 - an aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont hangs himself.

posted early due to upcoming holiday

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July 24

1926 - two Lufthansa Junkers G.24s leave Berlin to make a round-trip to Beijing. They will return on September 26.

posted early due to upcoming holiday

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July 25

2000 - a Concorde of Air France (Air France Flight 4590) F-BTSC, catches fire after takeoff, crashing and killing all 100 passengers, nine crew and four people on the ground, at Gonesse, France.

1909 - Louis Blériot claims a £1,000 prize from the British Daily Mail newspaper for being the first pilot to cross the English Channel. He makes the crossing in his Blériot Type XI from Les Barraques (near Calais) to Northfall Meadow (near Dover Castle) in 37 minutes. Blériot also received an additional £3,000 from the French government.

posted early due to upcoming holiday

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July 26

1955 - Capital Airlines adopts the Vickers Viscount, the first US airline to select a British airliner.

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July 27

2007 – Phoenix News Helicopter Collision: news helicopters from Phoenix, Arizona television stations KNXV and KTVK collide over Steele Indian School Park in central Phoenix while covering a police chase.

2006 – The Federal Republic of Germany is deemed guilty in the loss of Bashkirian 2937 and DHL Flight 611, because it is illegal to outsource flight surveillance.

1955 - An El Al Lockheed Constellation is shot down by Bulgarian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s. All 58 aboard are killed.

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July 28

2010 - A Lufthansa Cargo MD-11F crashes at King Khaled International Airport in Saudi Arabia. No casualties known.

2010 - An Airblue Airbus A321 with 146 passengers and six crew on board crashes on approach to Pakistan's Islamabad airport. Nobody survived.

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July 29

2002 - Vanguard Airlines ceases operations. The next day it files for reorganization under Chapter 11 of US bankruptcy law.

1959 - QANTAS introduces the Boeing 707 on its Sydney-San Francisco route, the first transpacific service flown by jet.

1950 - a BEA Vickers Viscount makes the first turboprop-powered passenger flight.

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July 30

1971 - An All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 and a Japanese Air Force F-86 collide over Morioka, Japan killing 162.

1914 - Trygve Gran makes the first crossing of the North Sea by aeroplane.

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July 31

1992 – A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashes into a mountain north of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113.

1973 – A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.

1972 – Northeast Airlines flies its last flight before being integrated into Delta Air Lines the next day.

1964 - A. H. Parker sets a new sailplane distance record of 1,000 km (621 miles) in a Sisu-1A.

1951 – Japan Airlines is established.

1948 – At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.

1901 - German meteorologists Berson and Süring climb to 10,800 m in a free balloon.

1894 - Hiram Maxim launches an enormous biplane test rig (wingspan 32 m, 105 ft) propelled by two steam engines. It makes a short captive hop after running down a length of railway track. After that he stopped his experiments, which had already cost him around thirty thousands pounds.

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August 1

1983 - America West Airlines begins flying, from Phoenix, Arizona.

1977 – Former Lockheed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers crashes the news helicopter he is flying in Los Angeles

1972 - Delta Air Lines absorbs Northeast Airlines.

1951 - Japan Air Lines is formed.

1941 - the United States embargoes the sale of aviation fuel to Japan.

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August 2

2005 - Air France Flight 358 bursts into flames after skidding off the end of a runway after landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. All 309 people aboard survive.

1985 - Delta Air Lines Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011, crashes within inches of the runway at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport, exploding and killing 133 persons, including a car driver who had been struck by the plane just before it exploded.

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August 3

1975 - A privately chartered Boeing 707 impacts the mountainside near Agadir, Morocco killing 188.

1904 - Major Thomas Scott Baldwin demonstrates the first successful U.S. Airship, "California Arrow", at Oakland, California.

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August 4

1929 - 4-16 - the first International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1929 in Paris, with 5,942 km race over Europe, won by the German crew of Fritz Morzik on the BFW M.23 plane.

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August 5

1989 - Piedmont Airlines is merged into USAir.

1981 – Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers who ignored his order for them to return to work.

1935 - Wiley Post, the first pilot to fly solo around the world, and his passenger Will Rogers are killed in a crash in Alaska.

1933 - 5-7 - Maurice Rossi and Paul Codes fly a Blériot 110 from New York to Rayal, Syria, establishing a new distance record of 9,104 km (5,657 miles).

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August 6

2005 - A Tuninter ATR-72 heading from Italy to Tunisia crashes into the Mediterranean Sea, killing 16 of 39 on board.

1997 - Korean Air Flight 801, a Boeing 747-300, crashes into the jungle in Guam on approach to airport, killing 228.

1966 – Braniff Airlines Flight 250 crashes in Falls City, NE killing all 42 on board.