1885 – Death of Stanislas Charles Henri Dupuy de Lôme, French naval architect and Navigable balloons designer.
1913 – Birth of Jeffrey Kindersley Quill, OBE, AFC, FRAeS, World War II Royal Air Force officer, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve officer and test pilot. He test-flew every mark of the Supermarine Spitfire.
1920 – World War I U.S. ace (twelve victories) Field Eugene Kindley is killed in a crash at Kelly Field near San Antonio, Texas, during a demonstration flight for Gen. John J. Pershing. A control cable snaps on Kindley’s Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 biplane; he stalls and falls from an altitude of 100 feet. Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda, is later named for him.
1949 – The Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) revives, offering women a full professional career in the air force for the first time.
1964 – The Boeing 727 entered service with launch customer Eastern Air Lines.
2003 – The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates as it reenters after a two-week mission due to a structural failure in the shuttle’s left wing. The crew, which consisted of Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark and Ilan Ramon, are lost.
