1933: France’s air minister Pierre Cot formally inaugurates the country’s national airline, Air France.
1947: The Avro Tudor 4 enters service with British South American Airways.
1956: The US Navy R4D-5 Skytrain Que Sera Sera, commanded by Rear Admiral George Dufek, becomes the 1st airplane to make a landing at the South Pole.
1959: Colonel G. Mosolov sets a new airspeed record of 2,387 km/h (1,483 mph) in the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-66.
1960: BEA retires the DC-3, its last piston-engined airliner serving out of London-Heathrow, from scheduled passenger service.
1977: a Pan Am Boeing 747SP circumnavigates the world over the two poles.
1990: the Australian airline industry is deregulated. Airlines are allowed to select their own routes and set their own fares.
1994: American Eagle Airlines Flight 4184 crashed in Roselawn, Indiana after a flaw in the ATR-72's deicing system lead to a buildup of ice on the plane's wings.
1996: Air Tahiti Nui formed.
1999: EgyptAir Flight 990, a Boeing 767 on its way Cairo, Egypt, was deliberately crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Nantucket, Massachusetts by the co-pilot as a way of committing suicide. All 217 passengers and crew members on board were killed.
2015: A Metrojet/Kolavia Airbus A321 bound for St. Petersburg breaks up and crashes into the Sinai desert minutes after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. All 217 passengers and 7 crew are killed. Initial investigations point towards a bomb.
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