Portal:Aviation/Historical anniversaries/April in aviation/April 30

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April 30

• 1975 - the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps evacuate 7,000 US and South Vietnamese officials from Saigon

• 1962 - Lou Schalk pilots the 1st official flight of the A-12 Article 131

• 1937 - Nationalist Spanish battleship España sunk by air attack by Republican forces.

• 1926 - Bessie Coleman, the first licensed African-American female pilot was killed along with mechanic William Wills, who was piloting the plane, after they crashed as a result of a wrench that Wills had accidentally left loose and that got stuck in the control gears.

• 1902 - The St Louis Aeronautical Exposition opens in Missouri. A highlight is Octave Chanute launching a replica of his 1896 glider.