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On This Day: March 12

Aviation events for March 12

1908: The U.S. Aerial Experiment Association’s first aircraft, the Red Wing, makes its first flight. This flight ends in a crash, from which pilot Thomas Baldwin, survives.
 
1910: Lieutenant J. W. Dunne’s D5 tailless biplane is tested at Eastchurch, Kent, England. It has a 60-hp Green engine and was built by Short Brothers.
 
1932: Newark Airport receives installation of landing aid equipment to assist with night landings.
 
1948: Northwest Airlines Flight 4422, a Douglas DC-4 (NC95422) returning to the United States from Shanghai, China, crashes into Mount Sanford in Alaska, killing all 30 on-board. Though the crash was witnessed by several locals, it became buried in snow and lost for near half a century. Removal of wreckage was only allowed by Parks Departments officials in 1999, and remains found of one passenger was also found and positively identified through DNA testing.
 
1950: An Airflight Limited Avro 689 Tudor V (G-AKBY, nicknamed “Star Girl”) crashes while on approach to Llandow’s Runway 28 in Sigingstone, Wales. While attempting to correct a lower-than-normal approach, the pilot’s correction causes a stall causing 80 of the 83 aboard to perish. The blame was placed on improper loading, creating a a center of gravity issue and the subsequent low angle of attack while trying to land. At the time it is the most deadly aviation disaster in history.
 
1955: First flight of the Aérospatiale Alouette II helicopter.
 
1957: The prototype Boeing 707 jet lands after a press demonstration flight from Seattle, Washington to Baltimore, Maryland during which it covers 2,350 miles in a record time of 3 hours 48 minutes.
 
1974: Mars 6 entered into orbit and launched its lander. The lander returned atmospheric descent data, but failed on its way down.
 
1975: An Air Vietnam Douglas DC-4 (XV-NUJ) is shot down by a surface-to-air missile in Pleiku, Vietnam, killing all 26 souls aboard.
 
1979: Atlantic Southeast Airlines is founded.
 
1980: A pair of B-52 Stratofortress aircraft make an around-the-world nonstop trip in 42.5 hours.
 
1981: Soyuz T-4 carries 2 cosmonauts to Salyut 6 space station.
 
1996: Florida West International Airways restarts operations.
 
1998: The first two of four Boeing E-767 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircrafts are officially handed over to the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force.
 
2007: Continental Airlines increases their Boeing 787 order from 20 to 25, adding five of the 787-9 series.
 
2008: Southwest Airlines grounds 44 aircraft for inspections, days after the FAA accuses as many as 117 of its 737s of flying without proper airworthiness certificates.
 
2009: Cougar Helicopters Flight 91, a Sikorsky S-92A, registration C-GZCH, ditches in the Atlantic Ocean off Canada, killing 17 of the 18 people on board.
 
 
 

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