This Day In Aviation

On November 3, 1950, Air India Flight 245 crashed on the west side of Mont Blanc, killing all 48 people on board. ...

On November 3 1957, Laika, a 3-year-old female dog, died in Earth orbit, confined in a small capsule named Sputnik 2. The cause of her death has been variously reported as euthanasia or oxygen starvation, but recent reports state that she died from overheating when the satellite’s cooling system failed....

The iconic British Airways Concorde made its final commercial flight on October 24, 2003....

On July 8, 1980, the prototype McDonnell Douglas F-15 Strike Eagle, a fighter-bomber variant converted from the second two-seat F-15B Eagle trainer, F-15B-4-MC 71-0291, made its first flight. Originally designated TF-15A, -0291 first flew nearly seven years earlier, 18 October 1973....

Operation SAGE BURNER, one of a series of record-setting flights intended to commemorate the 50th anniversary of United States Naval Aviation, ended tragically when a McDonnell F4H-1F Phantom II, Bu. No. 145316, crashed during a low-altitude supersonic speed run at the White Sands Missile Range near Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico....

On April 29, 1988, Boeing test pilots James C. Loesch and Kenneth Higgins took the new Boeing 747-400, serial number 23719, registration N401PW, for its first flight from Paine Field, landing at Boeing Field 2 hours 29 minutes later....

On November 28, 1979 Air New Zealand sightseeing flight to Antarctica departed Auckland Airport. The flight was planned to proceed to the vicinity of McMurdo Station at the south end of Ross Island, off the continent of Antarctica, and then return to Christchurch International Airport on New Zealand’s South Island....

On November 14, 1965 Captains Fred Lester Austin, Jr., and Harrison Finch, two retired Trans World Airlines pilots, took off from Honolulu on a 26,230-mile (42,213 kilometer), 57 hour, 27 minute flight around the world—from Pole to Pole!...