Portal:Aviation/Historical anniversaries/March in aviation/March 31

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March 31

• 2002 - Swiss International Air Lines begins operations, taking over many routes from bankrupt Swissair.

• 1959 - BOAC commences its first scheduled around-the-world service

• 1903 - Richard Pearse is reputed to have made a powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft, a monoplane of his own construction, that crash lands on a hedge. This date is computed from circumstantial evidence of eyewitnesses as the flight was not well-documented at the time. The machine made a flight claimed to be around 150 feet (45 m) on his farm at Upper Waitohi, near Timaru in south Canterbury, New Zealand.