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On This Day: 1994

Aviation events for 1994

January 3: Baikal Air Flight 130, a Tupolev Tu-154M, crashes at Irkutsk, Siberia shortly after takeoff as the result of a fire in the number 2 engine. All 124 on board are killed, plus one person on the ground. (26 years to the day later, Russia would order the grounding of all Read more...
 
January 7: Russian manned space craft TM-18, launches into orbit.
 
January 8: The Russian Soyuz TM-18 is launched, bringing cosmonaut Valery Polyakov to Mir for a record time of 437 days in space.
 
January 25: Clementine - USA Lunar Orbiter launched. The official name for Clementine is Deep Space Probe Science Experiment (DSPSE). It was a Department of Defense program used to test new space technology. Clementine was a new design using lightweight structure and propellant systems. It spent 70 days (between February 6 and May 5, 1994) in lunar orbit. Its four cameras mapped the surface of the Moon at 125-250 meters/pixel resolution. Clementine also used a laser to gather altimeter data which will make it possible to generate the first lunar topographic map.
 
February 3: STS-60 (Discovery) launches into orbit.
 
February 5: Clementine - USA Lunar Orbiter - (launched January 25, 1994) spent 70 days (between February 6 and May 5, 1994) in lunar orbit. The official name for Clementine is Deep Space Probe Science Experiment (DSPSE). It was a Department of Defense program used to test new space technology. Clementine was a new design using lightweight structure and propellant systems. Its four cameras mapped the surface of the Moon at 125-250 meters/pixel resolution. Clementine also used a laser to gather altimeter data which will make it possible to generate the first lunar topographic map.
 
February 11: Space shuttle STS-60 (Discovery 18), lands.
 
February 15: First flight of the Eurocopter EC 135.
 
March 4: Space shuttle STS-62 (Columbia 16), launches into orbit.
 
March 14: Soyuz TM-21 launches with V Dezyurov, G Strekalov and N Thagard.
 
March 18: Space shuttle STS-62 (Columbia 16), lands.
 
March 23: A RAL-Russian Airlines Airbus A310-304, operating Aeroflot Flight 593 from Moscow-Hong Kong crashed with 75 passengers in Mezhdurechensk, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia after the auto-pilot partially shut off while the captain's 15-year-old son was allowed to sit in the pilot seat and handle the controls. There were no survivors.
 
March 25: Aero Svit Ukranian Airlines is founded.
 
March 27: The Eurofighter Typhoon, a twin-engine fighter designed by Alenia Aeronautica, BAE Systems and EADS, makes its maiden flight.
 
April 6: A surface-to-air missile shoots down the presidential jet of Rwanda, a Dassault Falcon 50, as it prepares to land at Kigali International Airport at Kigali, Rwanda, killing all 12 aboard, including President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana and President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira. Their assassination will spark the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
 
April 7: FedEx Flight 705, a DC-10-30 (N306FE) experiences an attempted hijacking from a deadheading pilot, wanting to die in a plane crash so that his family could collect his life insurance. Using hammers to attempt to incapacitate the crew, take over the aircraft and possibly even crash the aircraft into FedEx headquarters, the crew fought vigorously after both the First Officer and Flight Engineer receive a fractured skulls. First Officer Tucker uses severely evasive maneuvers and near supersonic speed to throw off the attacker. Captain Sanders eventually takes over controls after the F/O becomes incapacitated and lands the aircraft at a very high speed while the aircraft is very heavy with fuel and cargo. All three pilots receive awards for heroism, and to this day have not received medical approval to fly again.
 
April 7: TAGG Angola L-100 (C-130) D2-THC catches fire while taxiing to a parking spot due to overheated brakes in Malengue, Angola. All 4 occupants escaped unharmed.
 
April 16: A Royal Navy Sea Harrier is shot down over Serbia by a SA-7 Grail. The pilot was later rescued.
 
April 23: Airbus delivers the first of 25 Airbus A300-600F dedicated freighters to the specialized package carrier, FedEx. This all-cargo version can carry up to a maximum payload of 120,855 lb over a range of 1,900 nautical miles.
 
May 5: Clementine, USA Lunar Orbiter (launched January 25, 1994)left Lunar orbit. The official name for Clementine is 'Deep Space Probe Science Experiment' (DSPSE). It was a Department of Defense program used to test new space technology. Clementine was a new design using lightweight structure and propellant systems. It spent 70 days (between February 6 and May 5, 1994) in lunar orbit. Its four cameras mapped the surface of the Moon at 125-250 meters/pixel resolution. Clementine also used a laser to gather altimeter data which will make it possible to generate the first lunar topographic map.
 
May 23: Air Nostrum is formed.
 
June 2: Ulysses - USA & Europe Solar Flyby (October 6, 1990) made first solar polar passage in June. The Ulysses spacecraft is an international project to study the poles of the Sun and interstellar space above and below the poles. It used Jupiter for a gravity assist to swing out of the ecliptic plane and onward to the poles of the Sun. The Jupiter flyby was on February 8, 1992. The spacecraft passed the solar equator in February 1995 and passed over the north pole in June 1995.
 
June 9: An Antonov An-124 carries a 109-tonne diesel locomotive from Ontario to Dublin.
 
June 12: First flight of the Boeing 777-200.
 
July 2: A USAir Douglas DC-9 crashes in North Carolina, the victim of a microburst, killing 37 people.
 
July 12: A Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules flies the 10,000th United Nations relief flight into Sarajevo.
 
August 3: Terrorists set off a bomb at Madras Airport (MAA), killing 32 people.
 
August 3: King Hussein of Jordan, a licensed pilot, flies his Lockheed L-1011 over Jerusalem, marking the first Jordanian overflight of Israeli airspace.
 
August 21: A Royal Air Maroc ATR-42 crashes while operating Flight 630 from Agadir to Casablanca, killing all 44 on board. The plane entered a nosedive as it climbed through 16,000 feet, an event caused deliberately, investigators say, by a suicidal pilot.
 
August 30: Lockheed and Martin Marietta announce their intention to merge. They will form Lockheed-Martin the following year.
 
September 8: USAir Flight 427, a 737-300 flying from Chicago O’Hare (ORD) to Pittsburgh (PIT), crashes in Hopewell Township, PA, while on approach to runway 28R, killing all 127 passengers and 5 crewmembers. The crash would be blamed on a jammed rudder. It marked the second fatal US Airways crash that year.
 
September 12: A man named Frank Eugene Corder flies a Cessna 150 into the south lawn of the White House, killing himself. He was supposedly drunk and had no intention of harming the President, but merely sought attention. President Bill Clinton was not home at the time.
 
September 13: The Airbus Beluga makes her maiden flight.
 
September 19: Congress passed the FY95 defense authorization bill and added $100 million to bring three SR-71s out of storage.
 
October 1: United Airlines created a new airline named United Shuttle.
 
October 25: U.S. Navy Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen, the first female aircraft carrier-based fight pilot, is killed off San Diego, California, in the crash of an F-14 Tomcat fighter she is piloting on final approach to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72).
 
October 25: U.S. Navy Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen, the first female aircraft carrier-based fight pilot, is killed off San Diego, California, in the crash of an F-14 Tomcat fighter she is piloting on final approach to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72).
 
October 31: 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.
 
December 16: First flight of the Antonov An-70.
 
December 24: Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by four Islamic terrorists while on the ground in Algiers. The Airbus A300 registered F-GBEC sits on the ground for two days before departing to Marsielle, where the French military would be allowed to participate. There, soldiers storm the aircraft, freeing all of the hostages and killing all four hijackers. The firefight and one explosive that went off left the aircraft damaged beyond repair. Three hostages had been killed by the hijackers over the previous days.
 
 
 

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