1966 in aviation
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1966:
Events
January
- The United States Army's helicopter assault-oriented 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) begins Operation Matador to destroy North Vietnamese Army forces in Pleiku and Kon Tum Province, South Vietnam.[1]
- January 1-7 – The U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade and Australian troops carry out Operation Marauder, a combined helicopter and ground assault against Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam's Mekong Delta and the first time American units operate in the Delta.[2]
- January 4 – Avianca Flight 4, a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, crashes into the Caribbean Sea just after takeoff from Cartagena-Crespo Airport in Cartagena, Colombia, killing 56 of the 64 people on board.
- January 8-14 – In Operation Crimp, a U.S. Army 173rd Airborne Brigade helicopter and ground assault destroys a Viet Cong headquarters in the Ho Bo Woods in South Vietnam.[3]
- January 17 – A B-52 Stratofortress collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker during aerial refueling near Palomares, Spain, resulting in the 1966 Palomares B-52 crash. Seven crewmembers are killed in the crash, and two of the B-52's nuclear weapons rupture, scattering radioactive material over the countryside. One bomb lands intact near the town, and another is lost at sea. It is later recovered intact five miles (8 km) off shore.
- January 24 – Operation Masher, later renamed Operation White Wing, a helicopter and ground assault by the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and South Vietnamese Army and South Korean Army units, begins against North Vietnamese Army forces in Binh Dinh Province, South Vietnam. The operation concludes on March 6.[4]
- January 24 – The Boeing 707-437 Kanchenjunga, operating as Air India Flight 101, crashes on Mont Blanc in France, killing all 117 people on board. In 1950, Air India Flight 245 had crashed in almost exactly the same spot.
- January 28 – Lufthansa Flight 005, a Convair CV-440 Metropolitan, aborts its landing in heavy rain at Bremen Airport in Bremen, West Germany, then crashes doing a subsequent go around maneuver, killing all 46 people on board. Among the dead are actress Ada Chekhova, daughter of Olga Chekhova and mother of Vera Tschechowa, and seven swimmers of the Italian Olympic Team and their coach.
- January 31 – The United States resumes Operation Rolling Thunder over North Vietnam.[5]
February
- Nicholas Piantanida is killed while attempting to break the world balloon altitude record.
- In the 1966 Defence White Paper, the British Labour government announces that Royal Navy's planned CVA-01 aircraft carrier will not be built because of its expense. It also declares that the traditional strike, reconnaissance, air defense, and airborne early warning functions of carrier-based aircraft can be carried out more cheaply by shore-based Royal Air Force aircraft, that the use of cruiser- and frigate-based helicopters would be a cheaper means of providing anti-submarine defense of ships, and that ship-launched antiship missiles could replace carrier planes in the anti-ship role.[6]
- February 2 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 17, a Sikorsky S-61, experiences an oil leak, strikes a vulture, and then loses power and crashes near Faridpur, East Pakistan (now in Bangladesh), killing 23 of the 24 people on board and injuring the lone survivor.
- February 4 – All Nippon Airways Flight 60 crashes into Tokyo Bay while on night approach to Tokyo's Haneda International Airport, killing all 133 people on board. It is the worst death toll in a single-aircraft accident in history at the time, and will remain so until 1969.
- February 8 – Freddie Laker founds Laker Airways
March
- U.S. Navy A-4 Skyhawk bombers become the first aircraft to use the AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile in combat, targeting guidance radars at surface-to-air missile sites in North Vietnam.[7]
- March 4 – Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 402, a Douglas DC-8, strikes the approach lights and a seawall during a night landing attempt in poor visibility at Tokyo International Airport in Japan and crashes on the runway, killing 64 of the 72 people on board.
- March 5 – After taxiing past the wreckage of Canadian Pacific Airlines Flight 402, Boeing 707-436 G-APFE, operating as BOAC Flight 911, disintegrates and crashes near Mount Fuji in Japan shortly after take-off from Tokyo International Airport, killing all 124 people on board. The two crashes kill a combined 188 people, a record total at the time for aviation accidents in a 24-hour period.
- March 5 – For the first time, the United States employs the Alpha section (listing major fixed ground targets in North Vietnam) of a U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Rolling Thunder order.[8]
- March 7 – France withdraws from the military structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, although it remains a political member of the alliance.
April
May
- Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s start to appear in the skies over Vietnam
- May 23-26 - Round-the-world demonstration flight by a new Learjet 24 to exhibit its capabilities; flight time was 50 hours and 20 minutes.
June
July
August
September
- September 9 – The Concorde's Rolls-Royce Olympus engine begins flight tests underneath an Avro Vulcan bomber.
- September 19 – Using UH-1Bs borrowed from the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy's first attack helicopter unit begins operations, supporting U.S. Navy riverine forces operating in South Vietnam's Mekong Delta.[18]
- September 22 – Ansett-ANA Flight 149, a Vickers Viscount Type 832, experiences an in-flight engine fire which spreads to the left wing, causing much of the wing to break off. The plane crashes near Winton, Queensland, Australia, killing all 24 people on board.
- September 24 – Marina Solovyeva sets a new women's airspeed record of 2,044 km/h (1,270 mph) in the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-76.
October
November
- The American military command in Vietnam establishes control of all air operations throughout Indochina.[21]
- U.S. Navy attack helicopters in South Vietnam begin using flight-deck-equipped tank landing ships operating in the Mekong Delta as bases.[22]
- November 1 – Air Canada begins the first North American air services to the Soviet Union.
- November 11 – A U.S. Air Force 551st Airborne Early Warning and Control Wing EC-121H Warning Star crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing the entire 19-man crew.
- November 13 – All Nippon Airways Flight 533, a NAMC YS-11, crashes into the Seto Inland Sea off Matsuyama Airport, killing all 50 people on board.
- November 15 – The Pan American World Airways Boeing 727-21 cargo aircraft Clipper München, operating as Flight 708, crashes during initial approach to Tegel Airport in West Berlin, killing all three crew members.
- November 18 – Captain William J. Knight flies the North American X-15 to a record speed of Mach 6.33 (4,250 mph, 6,840 km/h).
- November 24 – TABSO Flight 101, an Ilyushin Il-18B, crashes in the foothills of the Little Carpathians two minutes after takeoff from Bratislava Airport in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, killing all 82 people on board. Among the dead are the Honduran writer and journalist Ramón Amaya Amador and flight attendant Svetla Georgieva, who 18 days earlier had married the Bulgarian sports official Ivan Slavkov. It remains the deadliest aviation accident in the history of Slovakia.
December
- U.S. Navy aircraft conduct their first strikes near Hanoi.[23]
- December 6 - The West German Luftwaffe grounds its fleet of F-104s to investigate continuing accidents with the type.
- December 25-26 - The United States conducts a 48-hour standdown of air operations over Vietnam for the Christmas holiday.[24]
First flights
January
February
March
April
June
July
August
October
November
December
Entered service
January
July
September
References
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, pp. 60-61.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 61.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 61.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, pp. 61-62.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 154.
- ^ Thetford, Owen, British Naval Aircraft Since 1912, Sixth Edition, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-076-2, p. 27.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 154.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 154.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 154.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 154.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 154.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 154.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, pp. 67-68.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 154.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 69.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 155.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 155.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 72.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 69.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, pp. 69-70.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 155.
- ^ Chinnery, Philip D., Vietnam: The Helicopter War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55750-875-5, p. 72.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 155.
- ^ Nichols, CDR John B., and Barret Tillman, On Yankee Station: The Naval Air War Over Vietnam, Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-559-0, p. 155.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 54.
- ^ Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN 0-7607-0592-5, p. 10.
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